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VERSES 

FROM 

FEN AND FELL 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

C. F. CLAY, Manager 

LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C. 4 

NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

BOMBAY ^ 

CALCUTTA ImACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 

MADRAS J 

TORONTO : J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd. 

TOKYO :MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



VERSES 

FROM 

FEN AND FELL 

BY 

THOMAS THORNELY 



I 



CAMBRIDGE 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1919 






s> 



• \^ 



A 



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r^^^. 



INTRODUCTION 

AMONG the many curious instincts which dis- 
L turb and not infrequently discredit human 
nature, there is none which is more difficult to 
account for — since its * survival value ' must be of 
the slightest — than the mysterious impulse which 
leads so many of us, ' in an uncertain hour,' to break 
out into verse, and which persuades us so easily that 
crude thoughts and flippant fancies may be made pre- 
sentable and even pleasing, if only they are tricked 
out with rhyme and metre. 

Though the exact place of this obscure instinct in 
the general scale has not yet been determined by 
psychologists, we shall probably be safe in saying 
that it occupies a respectable position midway be- 
tween those high instincts before which our guilty 
nature trembles and those which we have in common 
with the brutes, and the fact that reason has little or 
nothing to do with the matter will be felt to be less of 
a discredit at the present than at any previous time. 
Being liable, like everything else that is worth 
having, to excess and abuse, it is the plain duty of 
everyone who feels it stirring within him to consider 
carefully how far it will be well for him to hold it in 
check, and to what extent it may be permitted free 
scope and exercise. There is danger in both direc- 
tions, since a too severe repression may provoke an 
unwholesome eruption through some other vent, 
while a full indulgence can scarcely fail to cause 



annoyance to friends and acquaintances, who cannot 
always avail themselves of the remedy which the 
general public knows so well how to use. 

In my own case I have resorted to a compromise, 
giving timely utterance when the inward pressure 
has been severe and relief imperative, while, at the 
same time, showing consideration for others by 
allowing the results to remain hidden away in drawers 
and note-books. 

An occasional peep or peer has been permitted to 
a few friends, on whose indulgence and discretion 
I have felt I could rely, and, if the stern resolution, 
on which I had rather plumed myself, has now 
broken down, I must invite them to take upon their 
own shoulders some portion of the responsibility and 
blame, since it is due to their friendly urgency that 
these callow owlets which I offer to Athens have been 
dragged from their snug obscurity and are now 
blinking and shivering in the light of day. 

With respect to the form or mould into which I 
have cast my verse, it may possibly be noted with 
surprise that, though I have tried various measures, 
I have made no attempt at ' Vers libre,' which holds 
out so many attractions to the adventurous and in 
which the poetic fancy of the day seems to find itself 
especially at home. 

I am aware of course that some graceful as well as 
many daring and surprising feats have been recently 
performed upon this particular spur of Parnassus, 
and I have often reproached myself for being unable 
to do more than sit and gasp at them in admiring 
wonder, but these treacherous peaks and precipices 
are no place for stiff joints and rheumatic brains and 

vi 



are better left to the happy audacity which vanishes 
with youth. If my thin piping is to be heard at all, 
it must be along the beaten and familiar tracks and 
under the restraining influence of rhyme and the old 
metrical conventions, however readily I may admit 
the superiority of those who feel that they can dis- 
pense with these aids and embellishments. 

It will easily be seen, both from their subject- 
matter and from chance allusions, that several of the 
following verses were written long ago. Others are 
of yesterday and, though all alike are of the flimsiest 
texture and the lightest possible calibre, there are 
some among them on which the sobering influence 
of the times has set its mark, and which may be re- 
garded as rude attempts to give expression to real 
feeling. 

The various pieces follow one another with little 
or no attempt at order, and I must leave it to my 
readers to discover for themselves the golden thread 
of thought which binds them together. I may con- 
clude by saying that I shall esteem them more for- 
tunate than myself if they are able to find it. 



Merton Hall, 
Cambridge. 



Vll 



CONTENTS 



THE MALE MANTIS TO HIS MATE 

THE AMOEBA 

THE ATOM .... 

THE IGUANODON 

TO CERTAIN PHILOSOPHERS . 

AGANELLA .... 

TO THE FAINT-HEARTED 

RECONCILIATION 

HOPE AND PATIENCE . 

LAMENTATIONS . 

THE DARDANELLES, 191 5 

THREE VOICES IN AMERICA . 

MY daughter's dog . 

THE OWL .... 

on parting with a pet raven 

rhyme and reason . 

night thoughts 

noah and now 

the sedge and the willow 

'winter in the lap of may' 

to the barnacle 

THE 'economic MAN' 

viii 



PAGE 

I 

2 

4 

5 
8 

9 

13 

14 

15 
16 

17 
18 

23 

25 
26 

28 

29 

32 
35 
36 
37 
38 



TUTORI DILECTO 

IN AN ANCIENT LIBRARY 

FEN AND FELL .... 

TO OUR SAILORS IN THE NORTH SEA 

MARCH 29, 1916 .... 

ABANABEL AND TORQUEMADA 

TO GERMANY .... 

MY BAROMETER .... 

OVER-WORKED .... 

LACHRYMAE .... 

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS 

WAR AND WINDERMERE 

W. E. COLLINS, BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR 

AT A FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACE 

AN 'impressionist' PICTURE 

ode to a steam-roller in the lake 
district .... 

to the founder of the aerated 

bread co., limited . 
'self-realisation ' 
the cry of the cricketer 

THIRLMERE WATERWORKS . 

a question of precedence 
'white-wash' .... 
roadside advertisements . 

the GREEN CATERPILLAR 
TO COUNT ZEPPELIN (191 5) . 
TO THE EAST .... 

SALMO 'fONTINALIS' . 



PAGE 

39 
40 

43 
45 
46 
46 

49 
51 
53 
55 
56 
57 
58 
60 
60 

62 

63 
63 
65 
66 

67 
69 

72 
73 

74 
76 

77 



IX 



TO THE TERRITORIALS IN THE TRENCHES 




(1915) . . . 


. 


79 


AFTER THE WAR 


. 


80 


*PRO patria' versus 'dulce ET 


DE- 




corum' .... 


. 


82 


EVOLUTION .... 


. 


83 


'I HAVE A GENTIL COK' 


. 


87 


TO A HERON .... 


. 


88 


A SERENE OLD AGE 


. 


90 


TO THE 'patriarch' . 


. 


91 


'V^HY THESE WEEPS ' (aRTEMUS WARD) . 


92 


LOST LANDS REVISITED 




93 


ADVICE TO A FRIEND . 




95 


A REPROACH TO TIME . 




96 


WAR (1917) .... 




97 


EPILOGUE 




98 



X 



THE MALE MANTIS TO HIS MATE 

{From facts supplied by M. Fabre) 

Though to thine ardours I respond, 
Full well I know my fate will be, 
Through the dark hours to find thee fond, 
Then make a morning meal for thee. 

But, from some immemorial past. 
Imperious promptings point the way 
To love and death. Break then thy fast, 
On me, at breaking of the day. 

My love all other love excels. 

Thine am I still when life has ceased ; 

For me alone the bridal bells 

Ring in the bridegroom's funeral feast. 

I know that instinct cannot err, 

And love must lead through joy to gloom, 

Then come, my executioner. 

My loving wife and living tomb ! 

Possessing, I shall be possessed. 
And indistinguishably thine. 
Thou, my weird wife, art doubly blest, 
With me to love, on me to dine! 



THE AMOEBA 

Amoeba ! O mother of all that lives, 

And of life that is yet to be. 

First of the forms to which Nature gives, 

Her promise and potency. 
Far and high have thy children climbed, they are climbing 

still, 
Why dost thou linger, Amoeba, alone at the foot of the hill ? 

They have peopled the earth, the sea and the air. 

They run, they swim and they fly; 

Many and strange are the forms they wear, 

As they mingle and multiply. 
Armed are they all and equipped for the fight thou dost not 

begin, 
And the fleeter of foot, the fiercer of fang and the craftier win. 

Amoeba! abidest thou still in thy tent. 
Like Achilles or Israel ? 
Why cling to thy simple environment, 
Thy life in a single cell ? 
Is it modesty, cowardice, sloth, withholds thee from enter- 
prise ? 
Thou canst do what thy children have done and are doing, 
Awake and arise ! 

Say est thou — many have tried and failed. 

Why should we care to try ? 

Right has perished and wrong prevailed. 

In a world that is wrought awry. 
Better to brood in the depths, sayest thou, than to scale the 

height. 
Only to falter and fail, or sink to the shame of the parasite. 



What are the ' fitter,' but they that grow 

A deadlier tooth or claw ? 

If they get them knowledge, 'tis but to know 

That to struggle is Nature's law. 
Few are the forms of life that succeed, and what is success? 
A wider field for a deadlier fight, a more resolute ruthlessness. 

Progress is mockery, growth disease. 

There are men who have known it well. 

They have lived in a tub, like Diogenes, 

Or a hermit's single cell. 
Wise were they, spurning the life they had led and the race 

they had run. 
But wiser and happier we, who foreseeing have never begun. 

But bethink thee. Amoeba, of those who win 

To the highest, and claim as the prize 

The Will, the Soul that can trample sin. 

And the Love that sanctifies ! 
Long and rough is the road, but call not the process vain. 
Which leads, from the mindless deeps, to such glories, be- 
think thee again. 

Tell me of this, when the goal is in sight. 
When man is a lover of men. 
In the dust and din of a world-wide fight, 
I laugh, but may listen then. 
While the lordliest cherish the hate in their heart, and glory 

in strife. 
The lowliest well may live as at first, at the foot of the ladder 
of life. 



THE ATOM 

" We do not in the least know how to harness the energy locked 
up in the atoms of matter. If it could be liberated at will, we 
should experience a violence besides which the suddenness of 
high explosive is gentle and leisurely." 

Sir O. LoDGK. 



Wake not the imprisoned power that sleeps, 
Unknown, or dimly guessed, in thee! 
Thine awful secret Nature keeps. 
And pales, when stealthy science creeps 
Towards that beleaguered mystery. 

Well may she start and desperate strain. 
To thrust the bold besiegers back ; 
If they that citadel should gain. 
What grisly shapes of death and pain 
May rise and follow in their track ! 

The power that warring atoms yield, 
Man has to guiltiest purpose turned. 
Too soon the wonder was revealed. 
Earth flames in one red battle-field. 
Could but that lesson be unlearned ! 

Thy last dread secret, Nature! keep; 
Add not to man's tumultuous woes ; 
Till war and hate are laid to sleep, 
Keep those grim forces buried deep, 
That in thine atoms still repose. 



THE IGUANODON 

(A down-hearted dinosaur) 

OR, PATHOS IN THE PRIME 

When Life, aglow with primal glee, 
Pranked in weird shapes that now are gone, 
And Nature wantoned wild and free, 
It was my curious fate to be 
A thing that now you seldom see — 
An Iguanodon. 

Creative power, since kindlier grown, 
To me, alas ! was all unkind. 
It heaped upon me flesh and bone, 
Till every limb had monstrous grown, 
As if it cared for bulk alone. 
But stinted me in mind. 

If I could live my Hfe again, 
I should with my creator plead — 
E'en at the price of sin and pain — 
For just an added ounce of brain ; 
A life so utterly inane 
Is not a life to lead. 

For ever loitering in the slime. 
Or browsing on preposterous trees, 
I felt the weary weight of time : 
In that debilitating clime. 
My whole existence seemed a crime 
And void of power to please. 



I had no aspirations high, 
No yearnings for the upper air, 
No impulse came to scale the sky. 
And Hfe's mysterious source defy, 
No frenzied wish to dare or die. 
No wresthngs with despair. 

But, waddling on the unstable earth, 
Or paddling in the tepid sea, 
Musing alone, in joyless mirth, 
I asked myself what life was worth, 
And what could justify the birth. 
Of fatuous things like me. 

Could I but think the powers I lack 
Lay hid, to be in time revealed, 
Feel friendly pressure at my back — 
But no ! I knew the appointed track 
Led but to Nature's cul de sac. 
And that my fate was sealed. 

I was no herald of the dawn. 
Forerunner of a race to be, — 
A race, whose proud exalted horn 
Might yet avenge an age's scorn, 
By fiery domination born 
In far futurity — 

No hopes of empire shook my rest. 
Or tinged my pale innocuous dreams ; 
Shrinking from Nature's sterner test. 
Between the oppressor and the oppressed, 
I stood as one who counts it blest 
To shudder at extremes. 



No spark from passion's smouldering fire 
Glowed ever in my listless eyes, 
Stirred my sick soul to generous ire, 
Or drew me from the deadening mire ; 
I never felt the least desire 
For any enterprise. 

So, numbed by sloth and sunk in shame, 
I yawned my useless life away — 
A life without a single aim, 
A life intolerably tame — 
When death and dissolution came, 
They did but call me from a game 
I had no mind to play^ 

Yet you, to whom a generous share 
Of brains, so grudged to me, has gone. 
Press round my bones to peep and stare, 
As though a genius rested there, 
And guard with ceremonious care 
An Iguanodon! 

* The poor afflicted monster has allowed his honest indignation to 
carry him a line too far, but I had not the heart to pull him up. (T. T.) 



TO CERTAIN PHILOSOPHERS 

Evil, ye say, is goodness read awry, 
And folly wisdom in a wayward mood ; 
In clear-eyed vision contradictories die. 
And difference melts into similitude. 

Choose, but, ye say, some loftier coign of view, 
And mark how misery dissolves in bliss. 
Vice turns herself to virtue, false to true, 
Fused in some reconciling synthesis. 

Judge not, nor sift the sinners from the saints, 
Call not Aurelius good or Borgia bad : 
In the full glare of truth, distinction faints, 
And Gawain ranks with spotless Galahad. 

Take a proud nation's blazoned roll of fame, 
And blot, with undiscriminating pen. 
Each word of praise, each shadowy hint of shame, 
And write — ' These were as are all other men.' 

Links are we all of one eternal chain. 

Dragged, why we know not, up life's steep ascent; 

Sin is illusion and remorse is vain ; 

To prate of freedom is but babblement. 

Wrong is, so say ye, but the temporal name, 
Men give to aspects of eternal right. — 
We hear and answer, ' End the wordy game, 
And crown your creed by adding — Black is White ! 



AGANELLA 

"Some write that Aganella, a fair maid of Corcyra, was the 
inventor of it, for she presented the first ball that ever was made 
to Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alcinous, and taught her 
how to use it." (Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.) 

What were life without its leisure ? 
What were leisure without play ? 
Play without a ball were pleasure 
With half its sweetness sucked away. 

Aganella of Corcyra ! 
Hadst thou what is rightly thine, 
Every youth were an admirer, 
Every maid would deck thy shrine. 

Thou hadst been acclaimed by Clio, 
Blazoned on her scroll of worth 
Thy name, like gadfly-goaded lo. 
Had wandered over all the earth. 

Poets, who have all ignored thee, 
With hearts that burned and eyes that shone, 
Had in rapturous phrase adored thee. 
From Pindus and from Helicon. 

Only Burton's pedant pages 
Lift from thee oblivion's pall ; 
Sport, he argues, spleen assuages, 
Citing Aganella's ball. 

She the first ball wrought and rounded, 
In her Ionian isle afar; 
Tossed it, tested, found it bounded. 
And sent it to Nausicaa. 



Homer sings how, linen-laden, 
From her kingly father's hall, 
The wrecked Ulysses met the maiden. 
And watched her as she tossed the ball. 

But the blind bard says no word of 
The god-like girl from whom it came, 
Aganella, hardly heard of. 
Be it ours to sing thy fame ! 

What though history doubtful eyes thee ! 
Let us — scorning fact and date — 
Strive to apotheosize thee, 
And a kind of cult create. 

Was thy parting soul transported. 
In the grand old Grecian way, 
To the Olympian courts and courted 
By the lucent lords of day ? 

Hast thou played and danced and dallied, 
Where the great gods sip their wine. 
And, in regions dim and paUid, 
Cheered the gloom of Proserpine ? 

Did thy ball, blest Aganella! 
Draw favouring smile from many a god. 
And even from the awful Cloud- Compeller 
Win for thee one world-shaking nod ? 

Wast thou bidden by Apollo, 
Bending from his amber car, 
In his burning track to follow, 
As a tributary star ? 

10 



Art thou seen, when dawn is breaking, 
Driving from an eternal ' tee,' 
And an awesome ' foursome ' making 
With Orion's flaming three ? 

Didst thou challenge bright Aurora — 
Old Tithonus whimpering by — 
To a 'set,' to triumph o'er her 
And send her blushing down the sky ? 

Or, to amuse a listless Heaven, 
Hast thou, on Elysian lawn. 
Captained an elect eleven 
Of nymph and dryad, sylph and faun? 

Haply gorgon, satyr or centaur. 
While the applauding thunder rolls. 
Takes the ball from its inventor 
And 'twisters' diabolic bowls. 

Do thine astral muscles harden. 
Beneath the golden-fruited trees 
Of the dragon-guarded garden, 
Sporting with the Hesperides ? 

In thy darker mood thou strayest 
From thy bright ambrosial bliss, 
And a sombre ' single ' play est 
In the dusky courts of Dis. 

On the meads of Asphodel a 
Pale but interested shade 
Mows the links where Aganella 
With the disembodied played, 

II 



With the scythe of Saturn mowing ; 
Charon and a crew of souls 
Bunkers build while, panting, blowing, 
Sisyphus the surface rolls. 

All the Stygian air is thrilling 
With rumours of the 'next event,' 
Gibbering ceases, bat-like shrilling 
Turns to babblings of content. 

Even in Hell's unhealthiest section. 
Where toil and pain unpitied pant. 
Some there are have caught the infection, 
And made them balls of adamant. 

Once from sulphurous throats there broke a 
Cheer, when some Tartarean ghost 
Aganella's ball did croquet. 
As it neared the winning-post. 

And the Fire-King, shrouded, sable. 
With rumblings earth and heaven appal. 
Rolls out a storm-built billiard-table, 
With thunderbolt for billiard-ball. 

May we think thy bright ball bounces, 
When some meteoric star 
On the earth from ether pounces. 
Like Perseus on Andromeda ? 

Some may court the Sister Graces, 
Some invoke the Muses nine. 
Doubtless all had comely faces 
And gifts — but what are theirs to thine ? 

12 



Thou hast glory from the glorious, 
Soberer homage from the slow, 
Thou art where the fun's uproarious, 
Thou art where the golfers go. 

Aganella ! gracious golden 
Memories float around us all, 
Who have been to thee beholden 
For that priceless boon — the ball. 



TO THE FAINT-HEARTED 

{If there are any such) 

Get ye pipes of scrannel straw ; 

Ease your sick heart of its complaining ; 

Bring ye sprays of Hellebore, 

Gathered when the moon is waning ; 
Pipe away your fear and folly, 
Purge your soul of melancholy ! 

Unlace the buskin, school your feet 

To tread some less lugubrious measure; 

Bid every sickly fancy fleet. 

Each sighing breath ye fondly treasure. 
Comb out the ashes from your hair, 
Nor longer woe's black wimple wear 

13 



Your girdle break of threaded tears — 
Each drop distilled from grief unspoken- 
Put off your robe of woven fears, 
The emblem of a spirit broken. 

Pack your sad fripperies in a pall, 
Heave one last sigh — then bury all ! 

Drain the cup of trembling dry, 
And fill it with a generous potion. 
To flash some lightning to your eye. 
And set your curdling blood in motion. 

Through flaccid veins let wild-fire pass, 
Burning your doubts like withered grass. 

Not by fainting hearts was built 
The realm our sons have died defending; 
And not for such their blood is spilt, 
The vigour spent, which they are spending. 
They ask of us, who hold them dear. 
One stern resolve — No faltering here ! 



RECONCILIATION 

Golden grass and rusting heather, 

And the many-tinted fern. 

Mix their fragrant breath together, 

And together glow and burn. 

Life and death, in beauty blending 
All their former grace transcending. 

H 



Friend and foe together lying, 
On the torn and trampled plain, 
Turn to one another dying. 
Soothing one another's pain. 

Life in love and duty ending ; 

Sweet the sacrifice ascending. 

Though the War's afflicting thunder 

Leave us withered as the grass, 

Sins that tore our souls asunder. 

With the passing storm may pass. 

Class with class no more contending. 
Fused in fire from Heaven descending. 



HOPE AND PATIENCE 

Stretch, wider stretch thine arms, immortal Hope! 
Eternal Patience, let us learn of thee, 
With Earth's immeasurable woes to cope. 
Our hearts high held above despondency. 

Let not the harvest of these angry years 
Rot in our fields, our travail all be vain. 
But let the seed, in sorrow sown and tears. 
Bring forth its increase, turning loss to gain. 

Though through our heart deep drives War's bitter share. 
Bid us remember years of drought and blight, 
Call to our minds what weeds were harbouring there, 
What god-like potencies denied the light. 

15 



As heaven, for many an age, with radiance bright 
Of unsuspected stars was thickly sown , 
So youth's wild glory beacons from many a height 
Unsealed before, to youth itself unknown. 

Though Earth's best blood in countless streams has run, 
And on her fields lain like the morning dew. 
When plough and harrow and a kindlier sun 
Have done their work, what harvests rise to view! 

Grain such as in no earthly furrow grows, 
From rust of sloth and blight of faction free, 
And freshened by the breeze that ever blows 
About the star-crowned head of Liberty. 



LAMENTATIONS 

Unhappy flower ! that, in another setting, 
Had bloomed as violet sweet, as primrose fair, 
What careless hand has borne thee here, forgetting 
Thou canst not feed on our harsh alien air ? 

The smiles of Spring are but as frowns for thee, 
And thy sad summer shall as winter be. 

Unhappy bird ! that in some darkened dwelling, 
Sing'st the remembered song of other days. 
Round thy lost home the April buds are swelling, 
At the warm touch of renovating rays. 

Thy fellows find each his melodious mate. 
Thou sing'st alone, forlorn, disconsolate. 

i6 



Not yours alone, O hapless bird and flower ! 

To mourn an altered air, a darkened day. 

We share your griefs, who, in Earth's anguished hour, 

See youth and youth's fair promise pass away. 
Shadowed by death's all-desolating wing, 
Our hopes have drooped, our hearts have ceased to sing. 



THE DARDANELLES, 1915 

It is an autumn evening fair ; 
Far up among the lonely fells, 
There beats upon the dreaming air 
The faint familiar call to prayer. 
The sound of distant village bells. 

And all around the heather blooms. 
Of peace each streamlet tinkling tells, 
But over all a shadow glooms. 
And ever in my ear there booms 
The thunder of the Dardanelles. 

Save where some too laborious bee 
Brings murmurous hints of busy care. 
All nature breathes tranquillity. 
But to that vexed and sinuous sea. 
My troubled thoughts perforce repair. 

17 



Where Greek and Trojan met of old, 
For ever locked in deathless fray ; 
Where Hero met Leander bold, 
And Jason brought his fleece of gold. 
Embattled empires meet today. 

Here, borne by Freedom's battle-breeze. 
From many a famed and distant land. 
From western isles and southern seas, 
E'en from the far Antipodes, 
The new crusaders mustering stand. 

One common hope in life they share, 
And in that hope they proudly die. 
That never more may tyrant dare 
To poison peace and taint the air, 
Where Freedom's flag is wont to fly. 



THREE VOICES IN AMERICA 

FIRST VOICE 
Vox Clamantis (191 5) 

The stars that on thy banner burn 

Show faint and dim today, 

Like tapers round the funeral urn 

Of honour passed away ; 

Their home is freedom's native air. 
They may not shine dishonoured there. 

18 



They led thee, when a tyrant's hand 

Thy rising power repressed, 

From bondage to a promised land. 

By God's own bounty blessed. 

They were the heaven-born stars that shone 
On Lincoln, Lee and Washington. 

By might of manhood, pride of race, 
And hearts uplifted high, 
Thy sons have won Earth's proudest place, 
Thy stars have scaled the sky ; 

They set the old world's captive free, 

And flamed in glory on the sea. 

But now thy leaders sit aloof. 

Thy stars look coldly down. 

Though, 'neath the invader's lawless hoof, 

Lies many a ruined town. 

From blackened hearth and shattered fane, 
Belgium has cried to thee in vain ! 

A tyrant's rage has set at nought 
The bond thy hand had sealed. 
His victims fight, as thou hast fought, 
On freedom's fatal field. 

O, say not that thy heart is cold. 

And beats not as it beat of old ! 

Had but rebuking word of thine 

Been flashed across the seas ; 

Did but thy stars indignant shine 

On nameless infamies, 

The baffled tyrant's heart had quailed. 

And law, now mocked and spurned, prevailed. 

19 2—; 



Die down, ye lights, in glory lit, 
Ye hopes so proudly cherished. 
What place is yours, if Mammon sit 
Where Right has ruled and perished ? 
If black dishonour veil the skies. 
That saw the star-sown banner rise ? 



SECOND VOICE 
Vox Pacifica ( 1 9 1 5 ) 

Let thy bewildered wailing cease ! 

These mourned-for stars of thine 

High in the midmost heaven of peace, 

With undimmed radiance shine. 

No red war-kindling orbs are they, 
Their march is on the Milky Way. 

Still their predestined course they keep. 

Though realms in ruin fall ; 

Serene they neither smile nor weep, 

When anguished nations call. 

But wait, in patient undismay. 
The dawning of a soberer day. 

Not theirs to guide a ravening horde. 

O'er seas of blood and woe. 

The Western World disdains the sword. 

And sheathed it long ago. 

Though Freedom, smitten to the core. 
Shrieks for her aid, she fights no more. 

20 



She joins not in the proud acclaim, 

When honour greatly dies ; 

She envies not the victor's fame, 

Or the blood-purchased prize. 

To her the old world's tumults seem 
Dim shapes of some distempered dream 

Not hers the guilt, if greed and hate 

Set half the world aflame ; 

She cannot bid the storm abate, 

Or war's wild passions tame. 

With breaking hearts and tottering thrones, 
The old world for her sin atones. 

If, swayed by mad knight errant mood. 

We too have been as they. 

And, fired by frenzied hopes, pursued 

Some phantom of the day ; 

Our hot intemperate youth has passed, 
And we have found our soul at last. 

But when, with shame and guilt oppressed, 

Her deadly discords dead. 

In penitential garments dressed, 

With ashes on her head, 

Europe shall quit her bed of pain. 

And stagger to her feet again. 

In faltering tones she then shall say, 

' To me, alas! 'twas given 

To tread the ungodly's darkened way. 

And scorn the path of heaven. 

Would that Columbia's choice were mine ! ' 
Then shall our stars benignant shine. 

21 



Till then, unmoved by scorn or threat, 
With eyes and conscience clear, 
Howe'er a mad world rage and fret, 
Our star-lit course we steer. 

Though tongues may taunt and brows may bend, 

We hold our purpose to the end. 



THIRD VOICE 
Vox Vera (191 7) 

Hushed was each voice, — a silence fell, 

Till, gathering from afar, 

More fiercely blazed, like fires of Hell, 

The ever-widening War, 

And Europe's unimagined woes 

Thrilled through the West: Columbia rose. 

A storm of angered awed surprise 

Across her spirit broke, 

Her stars' wild glory filled her eyes, 

As thus incensed she spoke, — 

While tortured nations felt again 
Hope tingle in each quivering vein : — 

Think not, because our Powers delayed 

To explore the fiery deep. 

We looked in danger's face dismayed, 

Or held our honour cheap. 

In counselling right, rebuking wrong, 
And hoping much, we lingered long. 

22 



On ancient wisdom were we reared, 

Befitting Freedom's wards, 

* Mix not ' — had said a voice revered — 

' With Europe's wrangHng lords ' ; 

And proud traditions, old and tried, 
We may not lightly thrust aside. 

But we have seen a perjured band 

Each law of God defy. 

Seen outrage stalking through our land, 

Our sons in ocean die ; 

No more we bend before the blast, 
The cup is full, the die is cast! 

From rusting sheath the sword we draw, 

Which sheathless shall remain. 

Till Right has conquered Might, and Law 

Keeps guard o'er Greed of Gain. 

Our stars shine, till that hour shall come, 
In air that vibrates with the drum. 



MY DAUGHTER'S DOG 

Dear is my daughter, dear her dog 

(To her) ; they live with me, 

And, for a time, we seemed to jog 

Along harmoniously. 

Like triple star that flames on high, 
We shone, the daughter, dog and L 

23 



Then I began to insinuate 

(Ah ! Would that it were true !) 

That, in that dread triumvirate, 

I bossed the other two. 

Perhaps, presuming on the thought, 
I showed a somewhat ' sweUing port.' 

I said the dog was Lepidus, 

(A sorry dog was he,) 

Myself the august Octavius, 

My daughter Antony, 

And history, I made it plain. 
Might soon repeat itself again ! 

But now, if ever comes a tiff, 
Betwixt my child and me. 
We still may ask and argue if 
We are not Antony. 

But facts have brought it home to us. 

That neither is Octavius. 

Yet, though (to put it at the worst) . 

The dog has won the day. 

And from the last become the first. 

Beneath my breath, I say, 

* There's nothing in the Decalogue 
Bids me obey my daughter's dog.' 



24 



THE OWL 

Let others seek, through storm and strife, 

Their places in the sun ; 

For us the only hours of life 

Are when the day is done. 

When eve is here, we softly flit, 
And whispered welcomes waft to it» 

Some praise the all-blistering fount of day. 

And joy in sultry noon ; 

It makes us wonder whether they 

Have ever seen the moon. 

Ah ! gracious queen, no lover true 
But learned beneath thy beams to woo. 

O'er dusky woods we watch her rise, 

And meadows drenched in dew ; 

From the mild radiance of her eyes, 

Our eyes their strength renew. 

Though men, with dull laborious wit, 
Our day-dimmed eyes deride and twit. 

Let dotards dream in bower and house, 

What can they know or feel. 

Who never chased the midnight mouse, 

Or heard the leveret squeal ? 

With joy and rapture thrilling through. 
We sound the hunter's wild Halloo-oo! 

One race alone of human-kind 

Has given the owl her due ; 

They first from man's neglected mind 

Its grace and wisdom drew ; 

And bade the owl in glory sit — 
Beside Athene's throne to wit. 

25 



Come, silent flitting as the bat, 

Ere furry poachers prowl, 

Let not the intruding, shameless cat 

Boast that she ousts the owl. 

May many a deed of derring-do 
Be done tonight, To-whit-to-whoo ! 



ON PARTING WITH A PET RAVEN 

Abandoned bird ! A freak of fancy led me 
To share with you my staid, decorous home. 
As wisely had I let a fairy wed me, 
Or lured a mermaid from her native foam ! 

I little knew where frolic Fate was leading. 
And can but plead that it was long ago. 
When I was sympathetically reading, 
The poetry of Edgar Allan Foe. 

I felt his Raven's eerie fascination. 
And something in me rising seemed to say 
(I took it at the time for inspiration), 
* Be bold and buy a raven right away.' ^ 

I went, I saw, was captivated, bought you, 
(Alack ! and well-a-day ! Or woe is me !) 
And to my startled home rejoicing brought you, 
To banish gloom and dissipate ennui. 

26 



Experience sad, prolonged and comprehensive 
Has taught the truth I, fatuous, failed to see. 
That one, who temperamentally is pensive, 
Must tire in time of tricks and devilry. 

Your sins are many, yet I cannot hate you. 
Uneasy as I am when you are near ; 
Today we part, may happier times await you, 
And give your talents scope and wider sphere. 

My house will then be sober, as it should be. 
And I can dream and doze before the fire ; 
While you, in some far haven where you would be, 
May find the kind of home that you desire ; 

A house with dogs, too small to be afraid of, 
Where cats are kept, to petrify and shock. 
Where children egg you on and much is made of 
The kind of humour that you keep in stock ; 

Where broken windows long remain unmended, 
And larder doors are often left ajar. 
Where poultry hens are near and undefended, 
Where all the pretty chick-a-biddies are ; 

Where nothing that you do is deemed intrusive, 
And anything you say is gladly heard. 
Where everybody likes to be abusive. 
And hear his neighbour mimicked by a bird ; 

Where people at their dinners do not mind you, 
But scatter crumbs about them on the floor. 
And only think it funny, if they find you 
Have pecked the meat about a bit before ; 

27 



A house with many dark and dusty places, 
To hide the stuff you love to loot and store, 
Where boots are many — boots with leather laces, 
And cushions with interiors to explore ; 

There take yourself, with all your gifts and graces ^ 
And live an honoured bird for evermore ! 



RHYME AND REASON 

Rhyme and Reason, linked together, 
(Much as eggs and bacon are) 

Mourn alike a moulting feather, 
And an inauspicious star. 

Failed has each to fit the fashion 

Of a hot explosive time. 
Reason yields her torch to passion. 

Frenzied singers hoot at rhyme. 

Old confections lose their flavour, 
To the emancipated sense. 

Obsolete they seem and savour 
Of a doting decadence. 

At the name of verse Victorian, 
Upward turns the lyric nose ; 

' As the dodo or the saurian 

Is it' shrieks impassioned prose! 

28 



Once we learnt that lordly reason 
Sat enthroned in mind and brain ; 

To dispute her sway was treason, 
Now we go to school again, 

Learn that instinct, intuition, 
Impulse — call it what you will — 

Is the sap that brings fruition, 
And can reason's task fulfil. 

Verse, we hear, is shorn of vigour 
By the tinkling touch of rhyme ; 

Reason cuts a fatuous figure. 
In an anarchistic time. 

Glorious is the wild-fire burning 

In the dithyrambic breast. 
Yet some, not wholly undiscerning, 

Have heard its cracklings unimpressed. 

Something of a hope there lingers, 
That passion may not always rage. 

That some less saturnalian singers 
May soothe some more saturnian age. 



NIGHT THOUGHTS 

In those bleak hours that come between 
The dead of night and morning star, 
Weird sights are by the sleepless seen, 
Grim travesties of what has been, 
False visions of things that are. 

29 



'Tis then the world shows most forlorn, 
And flaws in everything we find ; 
'Tis then soul-shattering doubts are born, 
Then the Night-Huntsman winds his horn, 
And spurs the jaded mind. 

Then memory unlocks her store. 
And brings long-buried griefs to view, 
Slights and rebuffs are counted o'er, 
And many a barred and bolted door 
Creaks on its hinge anew. 

Thoughts that the sunlight laughs away 
Throng through the hot distempered brain ; 
In wild tumultuous disarray. 
They swoop like loathsome birds of prey, 
Each with its stab of pain. 

Our very hopes are turned to fears. 
And, dressed in strange and grisly guise, 
Pour horrid warnings in our ears. 
Low whispered hints of wasting years, 
And baffled enterprise. 

Why did I let the occasion pass, 
(We ask) when wisdom bade me buy ? 
Why did I play the fatuous ass. 
And take that last disastrous glass 
Of Brown's old Burgundy ? 

What made me miss that morning train ? 
Its punctuality I knew ; 
To seek the cause is labour vain, 
Enough — I lost a chance of gain, 
By that lost interview. 

30 



Why did I crack that doubtful joke, 
Nor heed my wife's imploring eye ? 
A shadowy apprehension woke 
Within me even as I spoke, 

But did not stop me, why? 

Last night — How came I thus to err ? 
I knew them both and yet I placed 
The Dean beside the Dowager — 
I might have guessed what would occur, 
When diamond meets with paste ! 

Why was I weak enough to lend 
An ear (and cash) to Smith's request ? 
My instincts told me it would end 
In losing capital and friend, 
As well as interest. 

When all my brightest hopes are set 
On my succession to the purse 
Of my prim aunt, why did I get 
And give to her a parroquet, 

That loves to scream and curse ? 

Once more before my face defiles 
That preened and fashionable flock, 
I see the flickering light of smiles, 
Which greets, among the glossy tiles, 
My jaunty billy-cock ! 

And so the gibbering spectres pass, 
The maddening memories come and go ; 
Like faces in distorting glass, 
Neglected duties, errors crass. 
And baulked ambitions flow. 

31 



O welcome are the birds that sing, 
And tell of wakening day. 
Welcome the earliest bells that ring, 
Welcome, in short, is anything, 
That hunts these hours away. 



NOAH AND NOW 

When the first anchor fell on Ararat, 

And, through the eyes of Noah's congested crew, 

Peered hope reborn, aloof the Patriarch sat — 

(Earth's earliest ablest Commissariat) 

And pondered on the work he had to do. 

Problems and difficulties rose to view — 

Housing and rationing, schemes of reconstruction. 

And how to push things through without a ruction. 

He solved them all, at least we may infer 

That they were solved, for order lived again. 

Ah ! would that the inspired interpreter 

Had let us know what the solutions were. 

That issued from that busy scheming brain 

(So taxed he almost wished return of rain). 

Of all the wise and holy men of yore, 

None could have helped us better now than Noah. 

32 



For what he doubtless did we have to do, 
Build from the base a world in ruin laid ; 
Content no more to drift or muddle through ; 
In dim half-consciousness the old world grew, 
But the new world we dream of must be made, 
And a new order get itself obeyed ; 
And now and then a doubt assails us whether 
Our inborn gift is putting things together. 

If patching, botching, tinkering, talking, spending 
Would do the trick, the trick would soon be done ; 
But digging deep, to hidden roots descending 
(I say this at the risk of some offending), 
Burning the weeds and letting in the sun, 
Is just the sort of thing we loathe and shun. 
A principle, in our superior eyes, is 
A fad, a whim — our forte is compromises. 

Yet glance awhile at what perchance may be. 

When the long rain of rapine shall abate, 

And the receding waters leave us free, 

(Or find us forced as thralls of destiny). 

To prop or scrap our worn and battered state, 

And write upon a clean but broken slate, 

Which of the ways we fondly blindly followed 

Will still be there, which will the waves have swallowed. 

Will youth be taught what most it needs to know. 
Its best and truest self inspired to be, 
Or still be choked with lore of long ago ? 
Will science still be dreaded as a foe. 
Unsettling minds too tender to be free ? 
Will each young climber climb his chosen tree ? 
Or will there be the same unseemly wrangle. 
When truth is viewed from unaccustomed angle ? 

'■ 33 3 



Will beauty still be spurned, our fields defiled 
By pestilential posters puffing pills ? 
Or will the happy post-diluvian child 
Find everywhere some nook of nature wild, 
Where it may sport and wander as it wills, 
While its young heart with joy and wonder fills. 
And, from a home so fair that youth can love it, 
Learn something of the Heaven that smiles above it ? 

Will Faith's dull discords be no longer heard, 

When o'er the waste the sun of peace has shone? 

Detraction cease, some reconciling word 

Pass between Halifax and Hereford, 

Sect beckoning sect with an eirenicon ? 

Or will things go the way that they have gone. 

And fiery beams, retricked at Zanzibar, 

Flout the mild radiance of Cantuar ? 

Spirit of Faction ! shall thy baleful wing, 

Clipped by war's shears, refeather, thy beak and claw 

Be buried as of old in everything, 

That, whatsoe'er its use or hurt, can bring 

Profit and power, to glut thy ravening maw ? 

And shall our wise, who make or mangle law, 

In the old ruts be seen serenely walking. 

Convinced that all is well, since all are talking? 

Will social broils and bickerings leave a land 

Torn by a common grief? Will foe to foe 

Stretch o'er the old-time gulf a friendly hand. 

Or as opposing armies stiffly stand, 

Which pause but to prepare a deadlier blow, 

Till all alike are laid in ruin low ? 

Hope whispers time shall be when men will wonder 

That greed had power to tear true hearts asunder. 

34 



Will stricken peoples, brooding o'er the past. 
Turn on their old oppressors vengeful eyes ? 
Or will remorse, forgiveness, heal at last 
The wounds of loveless ages, and the blast 
Of war's wild tempest clear the troubled skies, 
And thunder out earth's old antipathies. 
That our sons' sons may say, * They made us free, 
Who fell at Europe's dread Thermopylae ' ? 



THE SEDGE AND THE WILLOW 

What does the willow sing loud to the sedge. 
And the sedge sing low to the willow ? 
As they sway in the wind at the water's edge. 
And bow to the passing billow. 

As they swing together and sing together, 

In a wavering quavering trillo ? 

They have whispered together for many a year. 
When the summer breezes blow ; 
They have huddled together in frozen fear. 
At the snarl of the wintry foe ; 

They have shivered together and quivered together. 

As they bent to the falling snow. 

They have wept together, in wimples of white. 
When the mists on the marsh-lands lie, 
Their shadows have met in the westering light. 
And danced till the moon was high ; 

Then they crept together and slept together. 

To the wavelets' lullaby. 

35 3-2 



Together they crouch from the north wind's breath, 
With its Hghtning lash of hail ; 

They have shrunk from it's shrivelling touch of death, 
Like grain from the thresher's flail. 

They cower together, as they flower together. 

When the balms of Spring prevail. 

What should they whisper but words of love, 
And of what but of love can they sing, 
When, from root to the tremulous tips above. 
They are sharers in everything ? 

They have grown together, and have known together. 

Each joy that the Seasons bring. 



* WINTER IN THE LAP OF MAY ' 

March may wear a scowling face. 
Deformed by passions fierce and wild; 
We do not look for courtly grace 
In surly Winter's wayward child. 

Her sullen airs and gusts of rage 

We pardon for her parentage. 

April has atoning tears. 

That take the sting from all her bluster. 

She frowns, then smiles away our fears; 

We love, although we may not trust her. 
With lips that pout and eyes that shine. 
We count her petulance divine. 

36 



But May ! The enchantress-queen of Spring, 

By all her witcheries attended ; 

E'en at her name our senses sing, 

If May be cold, our hopes are ended; 
If love in her be chilled to hate, 
Who shall her guilt extenuate ? 

Reclaim thine own, dishonoured May! 

The traitor winds shall fly before thee ; 

Cast not thy heritage away. 

Of hearts that, as of old, adore thee. 

O mock no more their deep distress, 
Who sigh for thy lost loveliness. 



TO THE BARNACLE 

A Study in Degeneracy 

O Barnacle ! My Barnacle ! Who would not weep for thee, 
Who saw thee in thy jocund youth in ocean frolic free. 
And sees thee, in dishonoured age, to rotting timbers cling. 
All senses lost, a motionless and miserable thing ? 

But deep the lesson thou canst teach to men who lightly say, 
That he who walks, where Nature leads, is never led astray; 
That only Man degenerates, who, mounting o'er the brute. 
Has won the power to sink or soar, as his high attribute. 

When he is whelmed in gulfs of shame, who might have 

climbed so high. 
We say that judgment waits on those who reason's rule defy; 
But thou, my Barnacle! art doomed an equal fate to share. 
And, looking Nature in the face, we say ' It is not fair.' 

37 



THE ' ECONOMIC MAN ' 

A Study in Deductive Political Economy 

Companion of my wasted youth ! 

With whom my infant fancy played, 

I took thee once for sober truth, 

In quaint habiUments arrayed ; 

In thy strange ' laws ' I loved to trace 
The custom of a vanished race. 

And, when maturer thought betrayed 

The fact that thou hadst never been, 

I let my former fancy fade, 

And set thee in a fairer scene. 

In prophet vision saw thee rise. 
In some industrial paradise. 

But now, as waking from a trance, 

I know thee for the thing thou art, 

A sordid hero of romance, 

A mummer with a foolish part, 
A joke economists have made, 
A ghost which common sense has laid. 



38 



TUTORI DILECTO 

OR, THE END OF THE 'LONG.' 

Shake off thy drowsy dull content, 
Thine hours of ease are o'er ; 
Forget the sunny days we spent, 
On mountain, moor and shore. 

Take up again the abandoned task, 
And trim the failing fire ; 
Put up that memory-haunted flask, 
Lay by that quaint attire, 

A terror be to offending youth, 
A rod to them that err ; 
A teacher of familiar truth. 
Or misinterpreter. 

Call to thine aid the judgment clear. 
By long experience tried. 
Which tells thee when to interfere. 
And when to stand aside, 

The smile that wins a father's heart. 
And calms maternal fears, 
The frown that makes the guilty start. 
And stirs the home of tears. 

Once more the athletic fever feel. 
Or, feeling failing, feign. 
Thy sleek expanding form reveal 
In boating guise again. 

39 



Thy place resume with those who sit, 
Where wine and wisdom flow, 
And burnish up the tarnished wit. 
That sparkled long ago. 

Once more the vacant hour beguile, 
With tales you love to tell, 
And meet once more the embarrassed smile 
Of those who know them well. 

And, when the tedious months have gone, 
That sum the toiling year. 
Then doff, O doff, the courtly Don, 
And let the friend appear. 



IN AN ANCIENT LIBRARY 

Tread softly here ! The dust is deep, 

And in the dust long buried, here they sleep. 

Who, through the years, their ancient order keep. 

In pages spotted o'er with mould. 

Some edged with lingering trace of tarnished gold. 

The serried tomes their ponderous wisdom hold. 

From age-worn lancet overhead, 

A little glooming, glimmering light is shed, 

And by this light the old-time readers read. 

40 



Vhat did they seek, who gathered here, 
Nhere but the bibUomaniac cares to peer, 
^nd the chance-comer scarcely veils his sneer ? 

Vnd what was found ? Did any rise 

"rom these cramped seats, with startled wondering eyes, 

trapped in the glory of some vast surmise ? 

Pouch lightly ! and with reverence due ; 

Twas here perchance some darkened spirit drew 

Phe strength to build a broken life anew. 

lere lies, in frayed and tattered dress, 

Vhat once could fire the blood, or soothe distress, 

Dr wake the infrequent smiles of loneliness. 

)ome puzzled sage has hither brought 

lis tangled thicket of bewildered thought, 

^nd sought with sighs for clue — and vainly sought. 

^nd here some eager questioning mind, 
Vflame with zeal some saving truth to find, 
'ressed on and left authority behind, 

\.nd, to his dire confusion, found, 

Fhat he, by solemn vows and orders bound, 

iad walked unwitting on forbidden ground. 

Phis portly, cardinal-crested tome, 

L-ike shell that vibrates to the distant foam, 

still holds faint rumblings of the wrath of Rome. 

'ts home-spun neighbour meekly strives 
Po gather honey from abandoned hives, 
Vnd store the sweets of sanctimonious lives. 

4^ 



While here, o'er-sprawled with gloss and note, 
With lines deep-scored for pedagogues to quote, 
The wind was brewed for many a boisterous throat. 

This hide, in rusty ribbons slit, 

Still guards its wealth of dull forensic wit. 

As when the salt of usage seasoned it. 

These shrivelled leaves of old romance 

Have made the impetuous novice backward glance, 

And change the censer for the pennoned lance. 

Here science tried her infant wings, 

And mingled dark and subtly-dangerous things 

With her devout, inspired imaginings. 

To this blurred, mildewed scroll 'twas given, 
The sodden dough of life with joy to leaven. 
And earth suffuse with rainbow tints of heaven. 

Dim visions of approaching light 

Have hung and hovered here and, at the sight, 

Dust-clouded, thirsting souls have drunk delight. 

Judge gently ! Check the indulgent smile ; 
Mock not at quaint conceit or pedant style ; 
But stay and ponder on the past awhile. 

Scorn not the stinted light it shed ; 

The lips, that at this long- dried fountain fed. 

Have quivered passion-shaken as they read. 



42 



FEN AND FELL 

Time was I thought the mountain's airy brow, 
Sea-scented dunes, and lonely moorland glens, 
Held all Earth's beauty I could love, but now, 
I seek and find it round me in the Fens. 

I love to gaze where lines of willowed grey 

The plain's green glory temper and subdue, 

While, on the dim horizon far away, 

Earth's grey and green melt into Heaven's own blue. 

Here gleam and drowse fair streams that never yet 
Have murmured out the song that in them sleeps ; 
Even when their bordering osiers toss and fret. 
In winter storm, their soul its silence keeps. 

Such streams are they as through Elysium glide, 
Their banks by undying blossoms overhung, 
Or where Boeotian marsh-lands far and wide 
Lie dreaming of the songs the Graces sung. 

Where yon far fane towers high o'er swamp and sward. 
The raven-beaked barge of Knut has stayed its oar, 
At vesper song ; here leaguered Hereward 
Flamed back defiance to the Conqueror. 

And, where the sun dips down till, like a dome, 
It rests upon the horizon, reddening all 
The long low levels, Cromwell left his home 
And Ouse-bound meadows, at his country's call. 

These homeward-faring rooks shall find their rest, 
Where Cambridge in her desolation lies. 
Mourning the sons she nourished at her breast ; 
Her life was theirs ; with them she daily dies 

43 



Where stealthy mists, up-gathering from the plain, 
Meet and conspire to weave the shroud of day. 
Still creeps the tide that bore the treacherous Dane, 
His burning heart athirst for spoil and prey. 

Like some vast heave of ocean's swelling blue, 
Yon eastern uplands rise and mark the scene 
Where Rome's impetuous eagles vengeful flew, - 
And screamed around the Iceni's hapless queen. 

Larks scatter round Heaven's largesse from on high, 
In golden song, and, when they cease to sing, 
Earth answers with the peewit's plaintive cry, 
As low she brushes with deceitful wing. 

With flute of sedge-screened fowl, the quavering sound 
Of drumming snipe, or honk of watchful hern. 
Each day, or heard or seen, fresh joy is found, 
Some lesson taught I am new-skilled to learn. 

Yet tax me not with an inconstant love. 
If I have ceased to pine that never here. 
When the clouds break, I look on peaks above. 
Or see below a rock-encircled mere. 

Though to my heart new scenes their message send. 

They mingle there with joys of long ago, 

Life's swollen river, broadening to its end. 

More varied beauty mirrors than youth could know. 



44 



TO OUR SAILORS IN THE 
NORTH SEA 

Death hovers in the deeps of air. 

And hirks in deeps below, 
For the hidden snare Hes everywhere, 

In the track of a treacherous foe. 

The sullen wash of winter wave 

Is ever in your ear. 
But, though many a wave be a seaman's grave, 

Your hearts shall be void of fear. 

All night the wild wind's wintry breath 

Beats on you fierce and chill. 
But, if every breath bore the wings of death, 

Your flag would be flying still. 

Far from the thunders of the deep, 

Your foes in harbour lie ; 
Secure they sleep, while your watch you keep. 

And the angry seas defy. 

One hope in your heart has the foeman set, 
One fear that your soul can chill ; 

The hope he may yet on the seas be met, 
And the fear that he never will. 



45 



MARCH 29, 1916 

We deemed, mad March ! till yesterday, 

That, sobered by this year of years, 

Thou hadst renounced the War-god's sway. 

And, with November's borrowed tears, 

Wast weeping, while thy winds forbore to play. 

So mild thy mien: thine air so still, 

With gloom and sobbing mists oppressed, 

That scarce the sprightly daffodil 

Stirred on her stem ; unused to rest, 

She moped and drooped beside the swollen rill. 

But now, in fury, like the foe. 

That fronts us o'er the Northern sea. 

Thou leap'st upon us, blow on blow, 

And our dead fields, in maniac glee. 

Thou shroudest with the unseasonable snow. 



ABANABEL AND TORQUEMADA 

' Root out ! root out the Infidel ! 

The race accursed, the brood of Hell.' 

(From iron lips the mandate fell) 

' Scourged from our midst, let none remain, 

To taint the air of Catholic Spain, 

And ply their godless arts again.' 

46 



This was thine hour, Abanabel ! 

Noblest of the race that fell, 

Hope of the sons of Israel. 

He fasted, prayed, then sought alone 

The bigotry-encircled throne 

Of proud Castille and Aragon. 

As one who braves the lion's lair, 

He sought and found acceptance there, 

And stood before the princely pair. 

At their feet he pleading fell. 

Pleaded wisely and so well, 

He stayed awhile the uplifted hand 

Of persecuting Ferdinand. 

A touch of pity, a gleam of grace. 

Found for a moment on his face 

An unfamiliar resting place ; 

While tears of soft contrition fell 

From the darkened eyes of Isabel. 

Why did high Heaven, that sent them there, 

And heard the pleadings of despair. 

Call back its gift, reject the prayer? 

Idly we ask ! To none 'tis given 

To probe the dark designs of Heaven. 

He back that wave of pity rolled, 

Who hardened Pharaoh's heart of old, 

And sends the wolf within the fold. 

A shadow on the presence falls ; 
A voice the startled court appals. 
Like clang of doom in prison walls ; 
A desolating voice that cried 
* Sell ye then thus the Crucified ? 

47 



Shall the Redeemer twice be sold 
To powers unblest for heathen gold ? 
Ungrateful daughter ! faithless son ! 
Shall the great work, in grace begun, 
By human pity be undone ? ' 

Aloft he raised before their face 
The symbol of atoning grace — 
Reproach of Israel's scattered race. 

As from some ice-born arctic blast, 
A shudder through the conclave passed ; 
All shrink before that awful eye, 
Which gazed unmoved on agony ; 
That eye, whose every glance was gloom. 
And told of torture and the tomb. 
While hope and trembUng pity fled, 
To join the dying and the dead. 

The softened light, that late had shone, 
Left the proud eyes of Aragon ; 
While trouble and confusion fell 
On the shrivelled soul of Isabel. 

Then those fierce fangs were bared again. 
Which tore the quivering heart of Spain, 
And made her grace and glory vain. 
Faith reeled beneath the sickening spell 
Of that grim priest, who tolled the knell 
Of thv lost race, Abanabel! 



48 



TO GERMANY 

Is there no nook in thy corrupted heart, 
No corner of thy misdirected mind, 
Where dwells a secret loathing for the part 
They chose for thee, who made thee what thou art- 
False to thyself, a curse to all thy kind ? 

We grudged thee not the glory and pride of place 
Thy unquestioned gifts and tireless toil had won ; 
Outstripped by thee in many a stubborn race, 
We praised thy prowess, counted it not disgrace 
To learn of thee and do what thou hadst done. 

To thee we turned, with homage in our eyes 
And raptured ears, when, in their mood profound, 
Thy kings of thought, by some august surmise, 
lifted man's vision, when heaven-sent harmonies 
Have moved submissive to thy lords of sound. 

Our doors stood ever open, welcoming hand 
Stretched forth to greet thy restless wandering sons, 
No port, no mart, from Cape to Newfoundland, 
To intercourse and enterprise was banned. 
Our rights were theirs where English order runs. 

But lust of dominance, mouthing from the throne, 
Met greed and envy muttering from below. 
Britain, they said, is spent and overblown, 
One crouch, one spring, and all she has we own ; 
The world is theirs who work her overthrow. 

r- 49 4 



Discordant counsels chill the soul of France, 
O'er Russia late the thunder-clouds have rolled, 
The Austrian stands alert with lifted lance, 
The restless Serb has quailed beneath our glance, 
Columbia sits engrossed with gain and gold. 

The far Dominions fret and strain the cord, 
Binds lusty youth to listless Mother-land ; 
India but waits the shaking of the sword 
To accept with glad acclaim a worthier lord ; 
Chafed Erin grasps each England-hating hand. 

So many a web of subtle craft and guile 
Was woven in secret, deftly veiled from view, 
Dark thoughts of treachery lurked beneath the smile 
Of him whose specious presence lulled our isle, 
O'er whose proud head our flag dishonoured flew. 

Then burst the storm, earth reeled before the shock, 
A trampled people rose and fought and fell. 
Wave following wave broke on the western rock. 
Barbarian hordes that ruth and honour mock. 
To reach their heaven plied all the arts of Hell. 

Still their polluted banner flaunting flies, 
While round it all that man can bear is borne, 
Still banded Freedom her grim foe defies. 
The widow mourns and youth heroic dies, 
The sun looks down upon a world forlorn. 

The night wears on but, piercing its deepest gloom, 
A gleam comes charged with promise of the day, 
In serried lines that trace the despot's doom, 
The hulls that bear the Western legions loom. 
An outraged world has waked and joins the fray. 

50 



What thinks she now, who harboured in her breast 
Dreams of world-empire ? she who, swollen with pride, 
Bade her gorged eagles gather to their nest 
The spoil of broken peoples, who told the oppressed 
They sinned resisting, mocked them when they died ? 

Shall the black shadow of thy shameless deeds 
Hunt thee for ever, estrange thee from mankind ? 
The imperial hopes, on which thy folly feeds, 
Blot from thee all man's loftier nature needs, 
And leave but a contaminated mind ? 

Or shall a late compunction turn again 
Thy face from him who led thee thus astray ? 
The chastening hand of loss and grief and pain 
Scourge from thy soul its pride and visions vain. 
And set thy feet once more upon the upward way ? 



MY BAROMETER 

I OWN and ever keep beside me, 
To cheer me till the storm-clouds pass, 
(Though friends, too sadly sane, deride me) 
An old deceitful weather-glass, 

Which, like the undaunted feathered singer. 
That carols in cannon-quivering air. 
Keeps ever an unfaltering finger 
Fixed on that soothing legend ' Fair.' 

51 



Perchance, like some who should be wiser, 
It makes a mock of Natural Law, 
Or, like the uncompromising Kaiser, 
Holds everything is fair in War. 

Or, seeing life in blank confusion 
And fierce infatuate folly spent, 
It turns from fact and courts illusion. 
Feigning a fair environment. 

Perchance it neither seeks to flatter, 
Nor cares to warn when tempests scowl, 
But calls to mind the Witches' patter — 
Foul is fair and fair is foul. 

Or, does it hold the faith ' Pragmatic ' 

That what is good for man is true ? 

Or think the Universe is static, 

Packed with perfection through and through ? 

Think everything, whate'er its state is, 
In some sublunary phase of thought. 
When seen ' sub specie aeternitatis ' 
Is doing everything it ought } 

Perchance, like optimistic Browning, 
Whose faith would make a Heaven of Hell, 
It sings to a world in deluge drowning — 
' God's in His Heaven and all is well' ! 

While Wisdom to such shifts is driven. 
And breathes a fabricated air, 
My weather-glass may be forgiven 
For always indicating ' Fair.' 

52 



And so I frown and feel offended, 
When friends, too sadly sober, say 
* It's out of order, get it mended. 
Or throw the useless thing away ' ! 



OVER-WORKED 

(A visit to a Government Department) 

A GIFTED friend, I long had known, 
Has lately risen to power and place ; 
I made a pilgrimage of grace. 
To see him seated on his throne. 

I found him, as my way I picked 
Through serried desks, in acid tone. 
Complaining through a telephone. 
While all around the typers ticked. 

He answered with a dreary laugh, 
My question how his labour sped, 
' If all were done and I were dead. 
These words might be my epitaph — 

" His labour served but to reveal 
A modern type of mountain ' mus,' 
He rolled the stone of Sisyphus, 
And turned Ixion's useless wheel. 

53 



Behind him, whispering bad advice, 
An atra-bilious ' Cura ' sat — 
A care that would have killed the cat 
That lapped the milk of Paradise." ' 

The wine of life, he said, was corked, 
The country speeding to the dogs, 
The people, foolish as the frogs, 
Their log deposed, were now be-storked. 

Quoth he ' The wisdom of the day, 
Hard on the heels of folly treads, 
And thinks, by counting brainless heads, 
To charm a nation's ills away.' 

He said that no one cared a jot 
For aught but his peculiar fad, 
There was no balm in Gilead, 
Physicians were a wrangling lot ; 

That things were * ganging all agley,' 
With food, munitions, mice and men, 
And, adding * England is a fen,' 
He sighed old Chelsea's ' Ay di mi ' ; 

That politicians all were bought. 
And trimmed to every wind that blew, 
In short, that everyone he knew, 
Was doing nothing that he ought. 

I let him say his saddening say. 
Then, thinking over- work and spleen 
Sat on the pulse of his machine, 
I softly took myself away. 

54 



LACHRYMAE 

We have no tears to spare, 

For foiled Ambition writhing in his chains, 

For Greed lamenting his diminished gains, 

For sordid sorrow and ignoble care ; 

These do biit reap the harvest of their pains. 

Nor mourn we long for those 

Who, seeing hope's fulfilment, pass away. 

In the full glory of a rounded day. 

Sinking, as sinks the sun, to their repose. 

Gladly they go, scarce would we have them stay. 

Tempered is too our grief. 

For those borne down by treacherous wind and tide. 
Who, rallying at the last their powers, have died. 
Where death is honour, life redeemed, relief; 
The haven won, their barks at anchor ride. 

Fitly our tears may fall. 

When Youth dies doing all that manhood dare. 
When light is quenched that might have shone so fair, 
Tears are their due, though glory crown their pall. 
Such glory, alasi such tears, are everywhere. 

But sorrow's keenest smart 
Is felt for those who knowing, honouring right. 
Have risen, faltered, fallen, and, in despite 
Of what is won, died withered at the heart, 
Sick of themselves and wearying of the fight. 



55 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS 

A SCRIBE, whose wares were waxing stale, 
Whose day had passed its flaming noon. 
Dreamed that his gifts might yet avail, 
And his confections find a sale, 
If, on a large and generous scale. 
He did but play the bold buffoon. 
The world its favour might renew, 
(Such was his reasonable hope,) 
If in Convention's face he flew. 
And out of all perspective drew. 
Looking at everything askew. 
Or through an inverted telescope. 

So, doubts and scruples cast away, 
He aimed at giving people shocks. 
Reversed each dogma of the day, 
And taught that virtue led astray ; 
He with hyperboles would play, 
And drink the milk of paradox. 

So deftly did he play the game, 
The critic air was all astir, 
And presently he rose to fame. 
Built for himself an honoured name, 
And — to his own and country's shame — 
Was hailed as a philosopher. 

And many, following in his tread, 
Have learnt the simple truth he taught, 
That wisdom standing on its head, 
Or moral precepts backward read. 
May stand a stinted wit in stead. 
And pass with multitudes for thought. 

56 



WAR AND WINDERMERE 

I WATCH thy wavelets, Windermere! 
In sparkles break upon the shore ; 
Ah ! would that they were watching here, 
Who loved but may not see thee more. 

Whom thou hast seen from Spring to Spring, 
Ere a lost world went astray, 
Through thy wild woods wandering. 
The Spring is here, but where are they ? 

Youths and maids, a joyous band. 
Clambering by thy rocks and rills, 
Plucking with an eager hand 
Thy now neglected daffodils ; 

Circling round each wooded isle, 
Skirting each enchanted bay, 
Resting on the oar awhile. 
To watch the coot and dabchick play ; 

Gazing where the sunset glow 
Creeps along thy guardian hills, 
Lights and tints the drifted snow. 
That still their folds and fissures fills ; 

Lingering till the rocks around 
Echo to the owlet's call. 
Or give back the muffled sound 
Of the wood-bound waterfall ; 

Listening at the water's edge, 
To the moon-loving warbler's song, 
As, by banks of reed and sedge. 
Silently they drift along. 

57 



Where are they who, year by year, 
Made their happiest holiday 
By thy waters, Windermere ! 
Where are they ? 

Far away, 
Some beneath the sod are lying, 
In an unremembered grave, 
Day by day are others dying. 
In the land they came to save, 

Some beneath the wave. 

Others live and broken-hearted 
Seek in vain for solace here, 
From the loved ones torn and parted, 
Who have loved thee, Windermere ! 



W. E. COLLINS, BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR 

DIED AT SEA, 19II. BURIED AT SMYRNA 

Not in the shadow of the embattled rock, 
That mitred thee, not in thine English home, 
O wandering shepherd of a foldless flock ! 
Thy feet have ceased to roam. 

The crescent waves above thy dying head ; 
The Aegean spreads and shimmers before thine eyes ; 
Thine ears are listening for the voice that said — 
* Take up thy bed and rise.' 

58 



Thy last of Earth was where Sophia mourns 
Her desecration and her ravished cross, 
While pagan tinsel mocks her crown of thorns, 
Beside the Bosporos. 

There hadst thou found a fit abiding place, 
Where East meets West, the Old World fronts the New ; 
Thy mind from many an age and creed and race 
Its varied wisdom drew. 

Greetings have met thee, shaped in many a tongue, 
And graced by welcoming flash of Eastern eye. 
Thy voice has swelled Nestorian, Syrian, song. 
And Coptic psalmody. 

And many a ruined desolated heart, 
Has, at thy coming, stirred and pulsed again; 
Thy smile has eased the burden, soothed the smart. 
Of penury and pain. 

Thou followedst in the track of wandering Paul, 
And, frail as he, through sufi^ering didst fulfil 
Life's task ; in each there triumphed over all 
An indomitable will. 

Though round thee float, from mosque and minaret. 
The breath of heathen prayer, thy spirit has flown 
To where, through storm and toil, thy course was set; 
Reap there what thou hast sown ! 



59 



AT A FASHIONABLE WATERING-PLACE 

As I have known thee once, I see thee still, 

Though, to the outward sense, there lives no more 

The quiet hamlet, nestling beneath the hill, 
And downward straggling to a lonely shore. 

One moment I, as others, see and hear, 
Then, pier, parade, pavilion, melt away. 

The hum of traffic dies, and to my ear 

Comes but a drowsy whisper from the bay. 

So, when some traveller, in hot desert sands, 
Or tangled forest, looks upon the face 

Of a dead city, musing long he stands. 
And strives to call to life a vanished race. 

He peoples there, as I unpeople here. 

He calls a city back, I bid one go ; 
Each sees the present fade, the past appear. 

One mourns the ebb of life, and one the flow. 



AN ' IMPRESSIONIST ' PICTURE 

Can it be that meaning lies 
Underneath this grim disguise ? 
Does some shuddering soul of sense — 
Some entombed intelligence — 
Lurk in this lurid fearsome thing ? 
Long I lingered wondering, 

60 



Hoping that a light would break, 
And a slumbering sense awake, 
Fearing that what others see 
Is for ever hid from me. 

Once a gleam of insight came ; 

' Behold ! ' I cried, * a world in flame ! 

See, amid the central fire. 

Chaos, crowned with wild desire; 

Gaunt Horror, starting from his lair, 

Shakes the lightnings from his hair. 

While, clustering round, the powers of Light 

Grapple with the Infinite. 

Yon towering mass of mirk and gloom 

Portrays the terrors of the tomb, 

And ushers in the Day of Doom ; 

While that delirious light above 

Speaks to our souls of conquering Love.' 

Thus I spoke, with kindling eye. 
To a critic standing by. 
But I could not find support 
For my bold and burning thought. 
And my smiling mentor said. 
Shaking a superior head, 
' It is not thus interpreted.' 
So the illuminating ray 
Quivered, broke and died away: 
' Alas!' I cried, in deep distress, 
' Art to me is meaningless ! ' 

N.B. A subsequent reference to the catalogue showed that the 
picture in question was labelled ' Sheep-washing in the Fens.' 



6i 



ODE TO A STEAM-ROLLER IN 
THE LAKE DISTRICT 

I HEARD thee rolling, as the thunder rolls 
Among the mountains, by the misty mere; 
Spreading dismay among the simple souls, 
Who, seeking peace and beauty, find thee here. 

I marked thee panting, thine abundant breath 
Streams heavenward, battling with the abundant rain, 
As life beats back the threatening darts of death. 
Or martyred spirit mounts through mists of pain. 

No outward grace is thine, the fire that glows 
Within thee wakes no answering flame in me ; 
And yet the lily and the reddening rose 
In vital essence are akin to thee. 

Why is it that the lily languisheth ? 
The drooping rose, why withereth she away ? 
'Tis but the lack of that which gives thee breath. 
For, without water, what were thou — or they? 

No eyes hast thou to mark the beauty by thee. 
No temper to be ruffled by the rain ; 
It is no joy to thee that cattle fly thee; 
No rustic admiration makes thee vain. 

Yet, when the earth, which trembles at thy tread, 
Shall break in blossom with returning spring. 
And wind-worn woods rejoice o'er winter dead. 
And all around the birds, long silent, sing, 
Thy vanished presence shall the tourists bless — 
The driven herd, who haunt the hard high road — 
Without thee had they sat in deep distress. 
As, 'neath the harrow, sits the suffering toad. 

62 



TO THE FOUNDER OF THE 
AERATED BREAD CO., LIMITED 

Prophetic Soul ! Whose searching eye, 
Disdainful of Earth's homeHer husbandry, 
Saw harvests in the over-arching sky ; 
Prometheus-Hke, to thee 'twas given 
To mingle with the breath of Heaven 
The staff of life : on thee descends 
The viewless air in dividends. 
At thy transfiguring touch. Prophetic Soul! 
Glows with ethereal grace the morning roll. 
A glory gilds, as of the all-conquering sun, 
The subtle essence of the penny bun. 



' SELF-REALISATION ' 

Bid me no more to ' realise 
Myself,' whatever that may be, 
I know not what the phrase implies, 
Which comes so glibly from the wise, 
And seems so clear to others' eyes, 
So full of fog to me. 

Is 'self the form I bear about, 
The thing I naively know as /; 
Which eats and golfs and gets the gout, 
Attends committees, joins a rout. 
Which, briefly, lives, and shuffles out. 
When it is time to die ? 

63 



Or should we realise alone 
The 'self that scorns the senses' sway, 
Which, when to fullest stature grown, 
Sits like a seraph on its throne, 
Subduing all things to its own, 
Till all have passed away? 

And, if the questioned sage replies, 
' Each power is good in due degree. 
It is the scale that signifies, 
In ordered ranks our duties rise,' 
One point is left to dim surmise — 
What may that order be ? 

One argues ' Each with other blends, 
A wider self within us lies. 
And far that wider self extends. 
To wife and children, foes and friends. 
And ever-widening, only ends 
Where all division dies. 

* When thus the many, fused in one. 
Have left the narrower selves behind. 
Our real existence has begun. 
The fight is fought, the victory won. 
And all that lives beneath the sun. 
May be oneself defined.' 

Vain words, that soothe the pedant ear. 
But leave us where we stood before, 
Not thus our doubts will disappear, 
We end with no solution near ; 
We hoped for help and guidance clear. 
And have — one phrase the more ! 

64 



THE CRY OF THE CRICKETER 

{When Golf came south) 

' PROCUL, O PROCUL ESTE PROFANI ! ' 

Golf is a noxious weed, 

Transplanted here, 

From that bleak barren land beyond the Tweed, 

To kilted Scots so dear. 

Cease, Vandals, Goths and Huns, 

This game unblest, 

Or teach it to your own dull, breechless sons, 

And let our land have rest. 

No more our tongue defile. 

With words uncouth, 

No longer from their native sports beguile 

Our unoffending youth. 

Your graceless caddies call, 

And bid them pack. 

Rebuild your bunkers where dark Hadrian's wall 

Kept like barbarians back. 

There munch your native oats. 

Your whisky quaff. 

Play your dull game from Tweed to John o' Groat's, 

While saner Southrons laugh. 



65 



THIRLMERE WATERWORKS 

OR, ' MANCHESTERISMUS ' 

With suppliant air she came to plead 

For thirsting souls beneath her sway ; 

We had compassion on her need, 

And let her bear our springs away. 
And so, through prisoning pipes and caverns long. 
She led them, silencing the streamlets' song. 

We bore that, through the toiling years, 
Our pleasant hills were seamed and scarred ; 
We strove to calm artistic fears, 
And smooth the plumes of ruffled bard ; 

We trusted to the pledges given by her ; 

We did not know thee then, false Manchester ! 

She promised, did we let her take 
Our waters hence, her care should be, 
To guard, around her larger lake, 
The beauties thousands flocked to see. 
We lent a readier ear, who long had known 
Her creed of ' laisser faire' or ' let alone.' 

Now, false to creed and pledges given, 

Rejecting Nature's kindly aid, 

She makes her artificial heaven, 

In place of that which God had made ; 
With alien blocks of red and gates of blue. 
She decorates the roads— improves the view ! 

66 



A forest, latest here that clings 

To mountain side, she tears away; 

' It does not harmonise with things 

Around ' — the civic sages say. 
Each mossy stone she scrapes with jealous care, 
Lest Nature in her work should claim a share. 



A QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE 

THE SUB-LIMINAL AND THE SUPRA-LIMINAL SELF 
I. THE SUPRA-LIMINAL (CONSCIOUS) SELF 

We who share a common fate. 
And a common burden bear. 
Joint upholders of one state. 
Make of life division fair. 

We are not as some have seen us. 

Discord never comes between us ; 

Thou art means and I am end ; 

Hail my humble, helpful friend ! 

Mine the privilege to know 
All the glories life can give. 
Thine to labour down below, 
ToiHng that the soul may live. 

I the ship of life am steering, 

Thou below art engineering. 

Mine the end that governs all, 

Thine the means mechanical. 



67 



5—2 



Inspiration streams to me, 

From the light that burns above ; 

Half-formed thoughts I fling to thee, 

In my condescending love. 

Everything that I am sending, 
Thou art weaving, patching, mending. 
Fashioning habits, fit to wear 
In my conscious upper air. 

II. THE SUB-LIMINAL SELF 

If thou wouldst indeed have peace, 

In the common life we share, 

Let thy condescensions cease. 

Drop that supercilious air ! 

Boast no more of thy dominion, 
Preen no more thy moulting pinion, 
Know — thy former view reversed — 
Thou art last and I am first ! 

Thine are but the gleams that pass. 

Flickering lights, that come and go. 

Bright reflections in a glass 

Of reality below. 

For, in spite of outward seeming, 
I am acting, thou art dreaming, 
And life's central glories shine 
In a region wholly mine. 

Thoughts that rise and flash in thee, 

In thy rapt exalted hour. 

Thy presumption takes to be 

Proofs of independent power. 

They are but the spray that ever 
Rises from the caverned river, 
Which, moving towards the eternal sea. 
Wanders awhile on earth with me. 

68 



' WHITE-WASH ' 

(As applied by certain historians) 

Not ours to view with cold accusing eyes 

The frailties of monarchs or of men ; 

If down in dust a reputation lies, 

Tis ours to set it on its feet again. 

If mercy is above the sceptred sway, 

Shall truth presume to stand in mercy's way ? 

And so we take our way across the ages. 
Lightening the shadows, laying on the paint; 
And, when we come to dark dishonouring pages, 
Which say that men are vile, we say 'they ain't.' 
To whiten Whigs we go to Lord Macaulay, 
For Revolutionists to Viscount Morley. 

Full many an ancient name defaced and tarnished 

Has come to us with orders to repair. 

Which now shines forth retouched and brightly varnished, 

A sight to make contemporaries stare. 

In fact, unless we wrote their names below them, 
The very mothers of them would not know them. 

To test our skill — Indulgent and forgiving 
Was the Eighth Henry to his friends and wives, 
If he had thought that they were worth the living. 
He would not, for the world, have ta'en their lives. 
He could not make them wise or great or good, 
And so he simply did the best he could. 

69 



And even Nero made a good beginning, 
And, but for Providence which shapes our ends. 
Had ended well ; more sinned against than sinning, 
Fate gave him a philosopher for friend. 

And, ere he put in practice half he learnt. 
He burnt his city (Rome was better burnt). 

If Timour ran amuk in sundry places, 

(He slew two million men or more, 'tis said,) 

They all belonged to those inferior races. 

Which many tell us now are better dead. 

He faced the Eugenic problem of his day. 
And solved it in his own emphatic way. 

Think of great Caesar ! think of Alexander ! 
And the victorious glorious roaring life they led. 
They lived in fire, as lives the salamander. 
And doubtless did the same when they were dead. 

They fizzed and steamed like super-heated geysers. 
And put to shame our vapouring capering Kaisers. 

If John was bad, his age was little better. 

He pleased himself, as others did and do. 

And, when he died, all England was his debtor. 

If any page of history is true; 

If he had lived a saint, or died a martyr, 

Where in the world were England's Magna Carta? 

Pope Alexander Borgia gave us trouble, 

His reputation was so badly blown. 

But reputation — mark you — is a bubble. 

And justice bids us judge him not alone ; 

Take him together with his son and daughter, 
And then his evil deeds we write in water. 

70 



Turn to the case of Catherine the Second, 
Theodora, MessaHna, judge the three 
Imperial dames together ; each was reckoned 
To be 'no better than she ought to be.' 

Take the charge strictly, who could stand the test? 

For who can e'er be better than the best ? 

Take next the torturing bigot Torquemada, 
His case demands our best apologetics, 
His heart was hard, his victims' fate was harder. 
Perhaps he dosed them first with anaesthetics ? 

Why not ? You cannot prove that he forbade them, 
Or would not have allowed them, had he had them! 

You guess, of course, and hardly need to ask it, 

Our treatment of the injured Queen of Scots. 

We brush aside the compromising casket, 

And show her reputation free from spots. 

She was a simple soul, who lightly drew her breath, 
And talked no scandal about great Elizabeth. 

And though great Bonaparte was wont to be, 

A little cold and callous now and then. 

As when he softly murmured ' What to me 

The lives of half a million of men ? ' 

He showed another spirit when, at home. 
He rocked the cradle of the King of Rome. 

And so of all the rest, upon enquiry. 
There's something good to say of every one ; 
If Pepys was frail, he wrote a charming diary, 
Oates liked his glass and Wilkes disliked a dun. 
We hope, with reasonable time and care. 
To whiten Jeffreys, Kirke and Robespierre. 

71 



ROADSIDE ADVERTISEMENTS 

Untouched by foe's defiling feet 
Our land has been and still shall be. 
Here heaven-born freedom stoops to greet 
Earth's beauties spreading till they meet 
And shimmer with the shimmering sea. 

Vain boast! A meaner, greedier foe 
Than ever struck at England's weal, 
With impious desecrating blow, 
Has dared to lay her beauty low, 
And spurn it with a huckster's heel. 

He stamps on Nature's living face 
The impress of a jaunty lie. 
Turning her smile to his grimace, 
And sullying every tender grace, 
To win some fool's approving eye. 

Where hung but clustering blooms, today 
His lying legend blinks and stares ; 
By many an ancient winding way, 
And lanes where lovers love to stray, 
He vaunts his despicable wares. 

By moorland, marsh and mountain side, 

The beauty-blasting sign is seen ; 

It gleams reflected in the tide. 

Where reed-bound rivers dream and glide, 

It gapes on every village green. 

72 



Before these baleful, basilisk eyes, 
Lit by dull fires of greed and gain, 
Earth's beauty sickens, droops and dies. 
And far affronted Nature flies. 
To save her soul and ease her pain. 

At honour's call, we fearless stand, 
To front a tyrant's grim array, 
Yet may not lift indignant hand, 
To scourge these spoilers of our land. 
And hunt our English Huns away. 



THE GREEN CATERPILLAR 

O, WHAT did they do at Dodona? 
What did the Dodonians do ? 
(I ask as the ignorant owner 
Of oaks not a few,) 

When the hosts of the green caterpillars 
Invaded their sacred domain ? 
Did they call in a posse of millers. 
To grind them like grain. 

And bake them for feasts sacrificial, 
Or spread them like butter on bread, 
Or extract from them oil beneficial, 
To the hair of the head ? 

73 



Were they used on the farms for manuring, 
Or for feeding of fowls or of pigs, 
Or by doctors and barbers for curing. 
And powdering wigs ? 

Whatever their use or their uses, 
When up they had given the ghost, 
What we want is the way that reduces 
Their number the most. 

And, if we're unable to find it. 
If no remedy seems to be known, 
We must make up our minds not to mind it, 
And leave them alone. 

But, what did they do at Dodona ? 
I am sure, if their story is true. 
They could give to the oak and his owner, 
A wrinkle or two. 



TO COUNT ZEPPELIN (1915) 

Beneath the war-god's furious feet. 
Earth cowers in fear and pain ; 
His trumpets never sound retreat, 
Her cries for peace are vain. 

Long has he held dominion wide, 
O'er shuddering earth and sea; 
One element alone defied 
His sin-born sovereignty, 

74 



And now he rides the afflicted air, 
And owes that realm to thee, 
Who bore his blood-stained banner there. 
And shared his impious glee. 

To thee, as to some vengeful fate, 
The ' War-lord ' frowning turned, 
When his low smouldering fires of hate 
With new-fed fury burned. 

His legions long, with angered eyes. 
Had glowered across the sea, 
Where, girt by many a squadron, lies 
The land of liberty. 

Could but those baffling waves be passed. 
That shrouded shore be won. 
The longed-for ' Day' might dawn at last, 
And Britain's race be run. 

The fire of heaven Prometheus brought 
To earth was kindly given. 
With deadlier purpose thou hast wrought, 
To raise earth's fire to heaven. 

Thine are the shadowy forms that flit 
By night and shun the day ; 
And thine the baleful fires that lit 
The raider's lawless way. 

O'er homes of drowsy peace they passed. 
Their seeds of death to sow ; 
They rode exulting on the blast. 
And hurled their bolts below. 

Till man repents and, steeped in shame. 
Turns from his hate and sin, 
His frenzied sons shall vaunt thy fame, 
And hail Count Zeppelin. 

75 



TO THE EAST 

Thought-burdened East ! East of the brooding brow ! 
Not the wide-rolHng wonder of the sea, 
Nor midnight heaven can steep man's soul as thou, 
In awe and deep abiding mystery. 

Thine are Aurora's blushes, thine the light 

That trembles in the track of Lucifer, 

But radiance purer, more divinely bright. 

Has streamed through thee, high Heaven's interpreter. 

From thee came forth priest, prophet, sage and seer, 
The thundered dooms of Sinai, wisdom hid 
In parable and myth, truth sifted clear 
In Porch, and pondered by the Pyramid. 

Gautama, Zoroaster, Mahomet, 
Confucius, these were thine, and thine was He, 
Whose light shall shine when every sun has set, 
And time has passed into eternity. 

Age after age illumination came. 
The warning voices spoke, new seed was sown. 
Culture on culture rose and passed in flame. 
Faith followed faith on a precarious throne. 

Thick darkness fell on Tyre and Babylon, 
The desert sands have closed on Nineveh, 
Thebes, Memphis and Palmyra, all are gone, 
Antioch and Alexandria, what are they? 

They followed wandering fires which led astray. 
Piled pomp on pomp, fed fat each earth-born lust; 
Let pride and pampered passion have their way. 
Till all their domination died in dust. 

76 



The beaconing lights thou hadst exalted high, 
Waxed dim, men scorned the glories of the mind ; 
Thy fairest fields in desolation lie. 
Thy fruits are cast upon the desert wind. 

Contention tore man's heart, and seared his soul, 
The heavenly vision passed beyond his ken. 
Till, worn and spent, he heard the chariot roll, 
The trampling feet of Turk and Saracen. 

What of the West, where poised the balance hangs? 
Shall equal folly bring an equal fate ? 
Shall she escape the soul-devouring fangs, 
Or, in like ruin, dissolve, disintegrate? 

Her yearning gaze was once upon the East, 
And from the East may yet salvation come, 
To uplift mankind once more above the beast. 
And fan the waning fires of Christendom. 

If sap still move in that fructiferous tree, 
Whose roots lie deep in India's soulful soil, 
O may some quickening shoot engrafted be 
On our worn trunk shaken by vast turmoil. 



SALMO * FONTINALIS ' 

BY PISCATOR PEDANTICUS 

FoNTiNALis ! daintiest, brightest 
Of the tribe ' Salmonidae,' 
For the fight thou gamely fightest, 
I have loved and honoured thee. 

77 



'Salmo Salar' (lordly Salmon) 
Leaps, beyond my purse and sphere, 
For the pampered son of Mammon, 
And the plutocratic peer. 

But of humbler fishes there is 
None that makes so brave a show, 
What is 'Tinea (tench) Vulgaris,' 
Or Carp (' Cyprinus Carpio ') ? 

* Rutilus Leuciscus ' (Roach) is 
Fair to see and hard to hook. 
But nowhere near thee it approaches ; 
Ask the angler ! ask the cook ! 

'Tis but the vulgar mindless rabble 
Or breechless youth can count it bliss 
For the Common Perch to dabble, 
('Perca Fluviatilis'). 

Moody-minded men may sit for 
Hours nodding o'er their lure. 
Muddy fishes catching, fit for 
(Frankly) nothing but manure. 

Let the fog-befuddled farmer. 
Coughing by his oozy stream. 
Boast of his * Abramis Brama,' 
Known (vulgariter) as Bream. 

Let the bog-bound Fenman fish for 
' Esox Lucius ' in the Fens ; 
That is not what he should wish for, 
Who is ' Homo Sapiens.' 

None can match thee, ' Fontinalis' ! 
Though the years (' labuntur') go, 
I shall catch thee, till the veil is 
Dropped on everything below. 

78 



TO THE ' TERRITORIALS ' IN THE 
TRENCHES (1915) 

What brings ye here, that live among the dying, 

Soon haply to be numbered with the dead ? 

What holds ye here and keeps your banner flying ? 

Though all life's joys have flown, ye have not fled. 
Lashed by the storm, by frost and fire assailed. 
Racked by this whirlwind war, your hearts have never 
quailed. 

The gilded pomp of war, the plumed array 

Of gleaming chivalry, the pageant throng, 

Soul-moving music — all has passed away 

That made war glitter in the poet's song. 

Yet here ye come, here ye undaunted stay. 

Where, after hideous night, breaks yet more hideous day. 

Ye were not bred to war ; from many a home 
Of peace, embowered cottage, feudal hall. 
And calm sequestered college, do ye come; 
Ye saw a vision and ye heard a call. 

Not lured by gain : not driven by harsh command ; 

Ye sought this bleak, sad, desolated land. 

Ye saw an old and blameless people rise, 
To front the oppressor, saw them overthrown ; 
Their burning homes shone in their burning eyes. 
Ye caught the fire and made their wrongs your own ; 
The call of honour sounded o'er the sea. 
Mindful of plighted faith, ye swore to set them free. 

79 



Fight on ! brave hearts, and faint not, far above, 
The star of peace hangs dim, but soon shall glow 
And brighten with returning light of love, 
Quenching the baleful beams of war and woe. 

Though days of straining horror, nights of pain 
Be yours, fight on ! Ye shall not fight in vain. 



AFTER THE WAR 

If troubled ether, agitated air. 

Can make a sunset or a symphony ; 

If soil most foul can turn to flower most fair, 

And order on disorder everywhere 

Must mount, and error live ere truth can be, 

O then may hope be ours that, through the gloom 
Of war and war's wide-wasting anarchy. 
Some spirit of health may rise from out the tomb 
Of our dead past: some flowers of grace may bloom. 
Which grew not in earth's old aridity. 

With such a faith we prop our battered state, 
And search our ruined fields for golden grain, 
And, mid the clash of warring empires, wait, 
As they who watch to see the storm abate. 
And the glad sunshine flood God's earth again. 

Misled no more by pride that will not learn. 

We cast around our eager altered eyes, 

And, with flushed brows and thoughts that flash and burn. 

With tremulous fears and fevered hopes, we turn 

To scan the horizon for this sun's uprise. 

80 



What mists of error may its beams dispel ! 
The foul miasma of a poisoned past, 
Which wrapped our isle in stifling fumes of Hell 
And laid on liberty its deadening spell, 
Binding our souls in sordid fetters fast. 

O ! May it shine on homes made meet to be 
The soil from which our native valour springs, 
Where love may mate with beauty, toil with glee, 
And life be lived in rounded symmetry, 
Crowned with the peace that freedom only brings 

May those who, linked as brothers, faced the foe, 
As brothers be when war has passed away. 
Building no more their weal on others' woe. 
And finding in their hearts' more generous glow 
The recompense for many a dolorous day. 

May eyes that open to that morning's light 
See Knowledge spread like some illumined sea, 
And ears be tuned to catch and read aright. 
With ever deepening wonder and delight. 
The heavenly note in earth's great symphony. 

Take not from hearts, by fierce affliction torn, 
Their last best hope that what has been may be 
The passing of a world misused outworn. 
The dark dread hour that comes before the dawn, 
The death of strife and birth of harmony. 



8i 



' PRO PATRIA ' VERSUS ' DUI>CE ET 
DECORUM ' 

{The Plaintiff was * non-suited ') 

There's a sort of satisfaction, when you've had a nasty blow, 

In telHng other people all about it. 
So I'm setting down in writing what I think you ought to know 

And hope to get your sympathy, but doubt it! 

It's the duty of the moment — so our legislators say — 
To save your ready money, not to spend it : 

To wear your hat or coat until it moulders in decay, 
And not to buy another, but to mend it. 

So, in frayed and tattered raiment, I compelled myself to go. 
And schooled myself to think it did not matter. 

If a farmer asked me coaxingly to stop and scare the crow, 
Or a townsman lavished praises on my hatter. 

This patriotic Virtue may be pleasing to the gods. 
Who look beneath the act to the intention ; 

But I grieve to say, when Virtue and Convention are at odds, 
You may safely put your money on Convention. 

For I woke and found one morning that my many-seasoned suil 
Had been ravished from me — gone, I fear, for ever, 

And a new one substituted, which has poisoned at the root 
All my patriotic virtuous endeavour ! 



82 



EVOLUTION 

When Nature set herself to work, she did it in a way, 

Which seems a little odd to us, who order things today. 

She did not think the matter out, or draw up any plan, 

But she started in a hurry and she reasoned as she ran, 

With the confident assurance of an optimistic man. 

Her misses were so many and her hits so very few, 

That the wonder is she ever had the luck to muddle through. 

But she hadn't any scruples and she never made a fuss, 

If the way in front was blocked she tried a circumbendibus. 

She churned quiescent ether up and stepped aside to see 
Existence oozing slowly from potentiality. 
And an integrating order stir the misty bounds of space. 
So she lashed about her lustily, to quicken up the pace, 
With a smile of satisfaction on her interesting face. 

She mixed a lot of matter with the thing we know as life. 
And, to make her creatures livelier, she set them all at strife — 
Some were fighting for a dinner, others fighting for a wife — 
And the one that ate the other was the one she counted 'fit,' 
Or, to put it scientifically, she 'selected' it. 
Strange forms of life came bubbling up with eager wondering 

eyes. 
Each with its little aptitudes, its faint antipathies. 
She sorted them and sifted them, in ocean, earth and air. 
And she filled the nooks and crannies with the stuff she had 

to spare. 
And the conscientious entity, that did not care to fight, 
Had to vanish from existence or become a parasite. 

83 6—2 



There were large and lumpish lizards, in that old and foolish 

time, 
Which led a dull existence in a sort of slushy slime ; 
Though some had bodies bigger than the biggest London 'bus. 
They were mostly inoffensive, being graminivorous. 
With the maximum of body went the minimum of mind, 
When the rest were romping forward, they came rumbling on 

behind. 
They may pass as early efforts, but they did not run to brain, 
So Nature swept them all away and set to work again. 
The whale was in the water once, and once upon the shore. 
And now it's gone to sea again — we trust for evermore. 

And other clumsy creatures came, that did not come to stay. 
They were willing to develop, but they could not find the way. 
The ones we see around us are the ones that guessed the game. 
They have found the place they wanted, so they mostly keep 

the same, 
Being tired of progressing and indifferent to fame. 

Next she took a lively lizard, and its faint ambition stirred. 
Till it mounted in the heavens, as a silly sort of bird. 
Though it could not boast of beauty, and it did not care to 

sing, 
In the eye of Evolution it's an interesting thing. 
The doyen of the tuneful race that live upon the wing. 

And so creation shambled on, and, as the ages went. 

Each saw some new departure made, some fresh experiment. 

There were many ghastly failures, like the octopus and shark, 

Suggesting inexperience, or groping in the dark. 

Or the coarser kind of joking, which the vulgar call a ' lark.' 

But do not let us look at life, like pessimists, and say, 

It's a boggled, bungled business and had better pass away. 

84 



We should not pitch our airy hopes unreasonably high. 
Or judge our fellow-creatures with too critical an eye. 
The very worst among us may be better by and bye. 

Well, Nature looked upon her work with pardonable pride, 
There was much that did her credit, still she was not satisfied. 
She was tired of making monsters like the hippopotamus, 
So she fixed her aim on higher game and set to work on us. 

The result was disappointing for, in attitude and shape, 

We were very little better than the ordinary ape ; 

But she straightened up the forehead, and she modified the 

thumb. 
And then she smiled contented, for she knew the rest would 

come, 
And let us spin the top ourselves and try to make it hum. 

And so it came to pass that, after many days. 

There were lots of funny men about, with lots of funny ways ; 

They were very fierce and ugly, and their views were very 

short. 
But they wanted to be better and were willing to be taught, 
Having morals in the making, even manners — of a sort. 
Their brains kept growing bigger and they learnt a trick or 

two 
(They were eating one another then, but found it didn't do). 
They learnt the use of weapons, of the boomerang and bow, 
They mounted on a horse and learnt the way to make him go. 
After long dyspeptic ages they discovered it was best 
To put food upon the fire, to help it to digest. 
Though their matrimonial matters were a common source of 

■ strife. 
They came to see the value of the woman as a wife. 

8k 



When conversation languished, from the lack of proper signs, 
A language was constructed, though on very simple lines. 
They did not care for grammar, and they thought it early yet, 
To tabulate the parts of speech, or start an alphabet. 

They tried to be religious, though their attitude was odd 

To the gusty personality they fancied as a god. 

Their views were rudimentary in many other ways. 

But they slowly sifted out their most unedifying traits, 

And found 'adaptability' to be the thing that pays. 

With a caution mostcommendable,whenacustomceasedtofit. 

They said 'We do not alter, but we re-interpret it' 

(Unconsciously foreshadowing our own forensic wit). 

Still they fought with one another, till, as brains and morals 

grew. 
And men distinguished what they did from what they ought 

to do. 
They fought about the meaning of the Beautiful, the True, 
And vexed their souls with problems which we cannot solve 

today. 
Though we think in many matters we have found a better way. 

There are many here among us who will argue that a fight 
Is the only way to settle if a thing is wrong or right. 
Though life is mostly struggle, it does not do to say 
That ways which told in days of old will work as well today. 
We have learnt cooperation and the law of give and take, 
And we spend a little trouble for another person's sake. 
Though fighting has its uses, it is better, in the end, 
To give up making enemies, and try to make a friend. 
The race that saunters onwards, with no sweat upon its brow, 
Leads a slovenly existence, and is better for a row; 
But the race that lives for nothing but the rapture of the strife, 
Pays a lot of ready money for an agitated life. 

86 



' I have a gentil cok, 
Croweth me day.' 

Hence ! worthy fowl ! thy duty done — 
To usher in the dawning day, 
And rouse from sleep the indignant sun- 
Accept our grateful thanks and run 
Away! 

And, if thou carest for length of days, 
Be not, O, blessed bird! a bore. 
Reiteration rarely pays. 
The true musician seldom says 

'Encore.' 

Clothed in thy self-importance, go ! 
A lustier braggart never crew ; 
Let all the world thy prescience kiiow, 
I only say a single crow 

Will do. 

If still thou sound'st thy clarion clear, 
And think'st my warning to defy, 
Thy fate will be, O Chanticleer! 
(If I have any influence here) 

To die ! 



87 



TO A HERON 

Heron ! All my hints unheeding, 
(All my imprecations vain,) 
On my fish I find thee feeding. 
Feeding on my fish again ! 
I thy horoscope am reading, 
And thy star is on the wane. 

Brother fisher ! Former friend ! 

Ponder on thy latter end ! 

Long thy grace and beauty pleaded ; 

When I doomed thee. Dear, to die. 

Something inly interceded, 

And I put my purpose by. 

Go! and all thy sins are pardoned, 
Stay not till my heart is hardened. 

Hie thee to the rippled sand. 

By the shallow, ebbing sea; 

There thy long-legged brethren stand — 

A solemn meditative band, 

Like some grave Presbyt'ry — 

Share heronian bliss with them, 
Build there thy New Jerusalem ! 

There are fishes fatter far 

Than my 'fontinalis' are. 

And no foes to fear ; 

Here, in spite of all thy cunning. 

Swift the sands of life are running. 

And the bitter end is near. 



Trust no more to my relenting, 
Long the sentence was deferred, 
Grace was given for repenting. 
Not to stay the circumventing 
Of a contumacious bird ! 



Vain the warning ! and the dawning 
Of the doleful day is here. 
Hast thou, Heron, no foreboding, 
While the lethal gun is loading. 
And the gunner drawing near ? 

I salute thee, ere I shoot thee, 
(Sentimental fratricide !) 
As Othello (foolish fellow !) 
Did when Desdemona died. 

Will tomorrow bring me sorrow ? 
Shall I feel a 'Hun'? 
Will a long remorse awaken. 
For the life that I have taken, 
And my very soul be shaken 
By the deed that I have done ? 

When the Autumn mists are falling, 

In the hollows dank and dree. 

Shall I hear, — O thought appalling! — 

Thine unquiet spirit, calling 

Curses down on me ? 

As, in accents faint and airy. 

Calls the cattle-calling Mary, 

On the dreary sands of Dee ? 

89 6—5 



Nearer comes thy floating figure, 
(May thy sinful soul have rest !) 
Nearer yet and bulking bigger, 
Now to pull the fatal trigger ! 
It is done and—' Well, I'm blest ! ! ! ' 



A SERENE OLD AGE 

When life has ebbed from flower and fruit, 

And her cast robes in tatters lie, 

She but retires within the root. 

And mocks at Winter blustering by ; 
Nor doubts each energy withdrawn 
Will wake to greet a kindlier dawn. 

So, in some soft and scented isle. 
Set in the foam of thundering seas, 
The battered wanderer rests awhile, 
And dreams and wakes in languorous ease ; 
Yet, as he counts his perils o'er, 
He sighs and inly yearns for more. 

Freed from the loosening coils of sense, 
The weary straining of the will, 
We hail the Powers that draw us hence, 
And bid them all their task fulfil ; 

Yet pray, if aught that dies return. 
We still may strive and still may learn . 

90 



TO THE ' PATRIARCH ' 

A Study in Anthropology 

(The Patriarchal Theory of the origin of poHtical society 
was supported by Sir Henry Maine and attacked by J. F. 
and D. McLennan.) 

Thy place was high among the great, 
Who bore of old unquestioned sway, 
But, hoary chief! Balshazzar's fate — 
Despair and death — is thine today. 

For men have risen who dare to doubt. 
And say that they have found thee out. 

Thy throne and its foundations shook, 
When, like the writing on the wall. 
Two bold bad brothers wrote a book. 
To prove you never lived at all. 

They say that earth's primaeval lord, 

Is but a venerable fraud. 

They trod the weary road again. 

Which led us once — we thought — to thee ; 

Thev laughed to scorn our master — Maine, 

Who strove for thy supremacy. 

And raised, ahhough her faults they own, 
The ' Mutter '^ to thy vacant throne. 

In her they hail the source of race. 
Of tribal bonds in peace and war. 
From her the devious line they trace. 
Which leads to ordered life and law, 
And coldly add they fail to see. 
What further need there is of thee 

1 ' Mutterrecht ' theory. 
91 



' WHY THESE WEEPS ' (ARTEMUS WARD) 

"I may add that it is only with the deepest regret and with 
death in his soul that the Kaiser proceeds to these extremities." 

(Statement of German Official.) 

Weep on ! thou crowned crocodile ; 
Weep, as thou wept'st o'er lost Louvain. 
Bedew thy soul with tears awhile, 
Then to thy hellish tasks again. 

In ' holy wrath,' with hymns of hate, 
Fill the wide world with pain and woe ; 
Enslave, deport, asphyxiate, 
Then bid the tear-fed fountain flow. 

Sow death along the travelled deep. 
And wing it through the wintry skies, 
To fall where babes and children sleep. 
Then weep to hear the mothers' cries. 

Weep, as they wept in days of old, 
Who bade the martyr ' go in peace,' 
To where the torturing flames enfold, 
Long ere they grant the soul release. 

He who first urged the tyrant's plea. 
Had tears like thine within his eyes. 
When sighing 'sad necessity,' 
He broke the peace of Paradise. 

Bid the chill waves of winter roll 
O'er peaceful toilers of the sea. 
And then, with death within thy soul, 
Weep for man's inhumanity. 

92 



Weep most for those who rudely dare 
At thy fantastic tears to smile ; 
Thy heart is cold as liquid air, 
Weep on, thou kingly crocodile! 



LOST LANDS REVISITED 

As fair a wood may wave, and wave for me. 
Another streamlet as melodious fall, 
As these which, waving, murmuring, here I see. 
And once my own could call. 

My own by double title, law and love, 
A love deep-rooted as my sturdiest tree, 
As constant as yon star, that keeps above 
Its course eternally. 

But never more shall woodland, glen or stream 
Bring to my soul the peace that these have brought, 
Restore the joys of which I nightly dream, 
Or teach what these have taught. 

There is no path in this far-spreading wood, 
But I have made it wander to my will ; 
No rock, no stone, on which I have not stood, 
By this meandering rill. 

93 



For me the larches shook their tasselled tops, 
The birches quivered, like a rippling sea; 
For me the hyacinth blossomed in the copse. 
And wood-anemone. 

I knew alone, perchance alone I know, 
The hidden source of this o'er-hazelled spring. 
Set round with mossy stones — I ranged them so — 
Like to a fairies' ring. 

Yon moorland tarn, that in the distance glows, 
With the last flush of evening's dying red. 
Was mine ; its waters at my bidding rose 
From out their peaty bed. 

In this deep dell another's eyes may peer, 
And here another kneel as I have knelt. 
To greet the earliest primrose of the year, 
And feel as I have felt. 

Yet still for me the peat-brown waters shine, 
The streamlet falls, light glistens on flower and tree; 
Let others own ! all are in memory mine, 
And evermore shall be. 



94 



ADVICE TO A FRIEND 

(by candidus) 

When worn by worry, born of bills, 

Or other irritating ills. 

You seek relief in throbs and thrills. 

From thoughts that throng and trouble you, 

Hie not to heather-harbouring hills ; 

Fly not to lonely, rippling rills; 

Try not the dancing daffodils, 

Of Mr W. W. 

The joy the poet sings will pall. 

The solace that it brings is small, 

In fact it will not soothe your sunerings at all. 

These simple pleasures were designed, 

(As many disillusioned find) 

For that uncommon cast of mind, 

Called unsophisticated. 

And people to that way inclined, 

Will turn their backs on human-kind, 

Vowing all other men are blind, 

All other joys o'er-rated. 

If I know anything of you, 

(I think I know you through and through !) 

These artless rural raptures simply will not do ! 

Doubt not my sympathy sincere, 
This is no supercilious sneer. 
But choose another atmosphere, 
Your weight of woe to lighten. 
Go not to Wales or Windermere, 

95 



Seek parasol, parade and pier, 

Drink — if you be not bilious — beer. 

And hear the band at Brighton. 

That pebbled, peopled, Pierrot'd strand 

Will furnish ready to your hand. 

The only thrills and throbs that you can understand. 



A REPROACH TO TIME 

Where is thy healing hand, neglectful Time? 

"The wound thou ?houldst have closed is open still. 

Hast thou renounced or lost thy gift sublime. 

To temper sorrow, soothe and soften ill ? 
Thou runnest ever: run as he who ran. 
With oil and wine — the Good Samaritan. 

Let me not class thee with the unpitying Priest, 
And cold self-righteous Levite, hurrying by. 
Nor with the Virgins, at the marriage-feast, 
Unmindful of their oil, when need was nigh. 
Forget no more thy power or my distress, 
But grant me, of thy grace, forgetfulness. 

Many have known thy succour, and the sting 
Of sad remembrance has been charmed away ; 
In the warm shelter of oblivion's wing, 
They find their solace ; let me be as they ! 

Must there be balm for every hurt but mine ? 

Shall years go by, yet bring no anodyne ? 

96 



WAR (1917) 

Not yet it passes ! still the cloud 

Hangs darkly shadowing every heart ; 

Tired Earth has changed her vesture for a shroud, 

And the red shambles stand, where stood the mart. 
Life is half-death and everywhere is mourning. 
The future dim, of menace full and warning. 

With labouring breath, we pant and strain, 
To where, in distance faint and far, 
The sunlit uplands shimmer above the plain. 
The abode of Peace, where all our longings are. 

Through dark ravines and gloomy forest groping. 
Onward we press, enduring, fainting, hoping. 

If we those longed-for heights should win, 

And rest our forces worn and spent. 

Will there a new and nobler life begin. 

Or the old return, untamed impenitent? 

Will there be home, joy, peace and sound of singing, 
Or but a hive distracted, buzzing, stinging? 



97 



EPILOGUE 

A CANDID kindly much-enduring friend 
Has read these verses through from end to end. 
Each piece he pondered with a puckered brow, 
As though he wished to praise, but knew not how. 
At every gibe or jest he paused awhile, 
The stifled yawn transfiguring to a smile. 
At last he sighed and said, ' One thing you lack, 
Abundant bread is here, but where's the sack? 
From first to last, though wide the ground you cover, 
I find no word, no hint, of love or lover, 
Save where a beetle, to his ghoulish bride, 
Droned out a drivelling dirge before he died. 
Verse without love is life forlorn of breath, 
Gasping for air and dallying with death. 
Take up, for pity's sake, the abandoned pen, 
Infuse some dash of Love's wild oxygen.' 

True, true! my friend, yet silence your upbraiding. 

What would Love say to senile serenading ? 

The golden harps of youth may sport with fire, 

Our fumbling fingers twang a leaden lyre. 

Yet all find heaven, whose vehicle is verse. 

In flaming chariot some, some in the homelier hearse. 



CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



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111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1606 



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